


Love in the Time of Socialism

by aurumdalseni (kyo_chan)



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Background Poly, Conflict Resolution, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Minor Character Death, Multi, Past Abuse, Past Child Abuse, Polyamorous Character, Polyamory, Polyamory Negotiations, Post-The Raven King, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, endgame Rodansey, prior Adansey, prior Sarchengsey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-27
Updated: 2020-06-29
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:02:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 27,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24944311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kyo_chan/pseuds/aurumdalseni
Summary: This is a story about a magician with a terrible history. The death of Adam Parrish's father after he leaves for college means a chance at closure with that part of his life, but he's not on the journey alone. At his side is a king, whose loyalty never faltered, no matter how much the world threw at them, or how many times they couldn't agree on how to live their lives.This is also the story of a dreamer, who loved his best friends so much that he didn't dare risk losing them by asking for something they couldn't give. So kisses that could have been became kisses that never were, and Ronan Lynch tells himself he'll make his home a place they can return to.They'll all come together again for Adam, even fierce little Blue Sargent, so he doesn't have to face his past alone. And while he works at closing those doors, he'll make his way into places where all the love Adam, Ronan and Gansey have built up over the years will finally have the space to bloom.
Relationships: Henry Cheng/Richard Gansey III/Blue Sargent, Richard Gansey III/Adam Parrish, Richard Gansey III/Ronan Lynch/Adam Parrish
Comments: 12
Kudos: 44
Collections: TRC Big Bang 2020





	1. Nec Aspera Terrent

**Author's Note:**

> I've got no words for all the emotions I'm having right now on TRC Big Bang posting day! I'm very excited for this to finally be revealed - it's been a lot of hard work, and I haven't finished a big bang or a long fic in a very long time. So this feels like a major accomplishment at a time when those things are hard to come by. Here is a list of the people who made it happen and why I love them:  
> First, my wife, who whispered a single thought of Rodansey born from thirst-trap Ronan. Because we are who we are, we built a plot around a single moment that became something beautiful, and it became my goal to write this for her. Here we are.  
> Second, my artist [effwit](http://effwit.tumblr.com), who is not only an incredible artist, but is great at encouraging and challenging and pushing and reminding me to keep going. Please also know that they saved me at the point where I said, "I have all of this plot, but now how do they kiss???!!!"  
> Third, my dear beta [Cristina](http://crostiina.tumblr.com), who dove into each chapter eagerly and then encouragingly reminded me at every turn that I was doing well and writing a great story, and I appreciate that so much!  
> Also shouting out to the BB Server, full of people who are amazing and talented and supportive - let me tell y'all, you have a LOT of amazing things to look forward to from this bang. My darling Cappie, who knows how much of me is written into this story and kept me from backing down. My weekly writer's group, who's had to put up with a lot of gay from me without ever seeing me finish a project. I've broken that streak now.  
> [Fic Mood Board](https://www.pinterest.com/crimsonchimera/love-in-the-time-of-socialism-2019-2020/) | [Fic Playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3c0yAxx3BIAydT1RVFyHVs?si=rKPgWWAxSJydfJ1WkTIxpg)  
> Thank you for coming to read this fic, and I hope you enjoy it! <3

### Pulchram Animae ~ Prologue

_A beautiful soul_

**O** ne night, before the end of the world, Ronan Lynch had thrown a party at the Barns. He said it was for his birthday, and everyone went along with it because they knew the world was ending. Brothers didn’t fight, they broke bread like a family and filled the house with the love it once had. The Lynch home stood as a collection of oddities and dreams, and the invisible silken threads that patched people together as a family, no matter what blood said. And when the festivities ended, the sitting room became a war room, where tactics were discussed and plans were made. Truths were revealed, and bonds were forged that would survive death, even conquer it.

Adam’s recollection of that night was a little different than he thought it should be. Instead of thinking about the food or the festivities, or even the looming threat of an insidious demon eating their forest alive, he constantly returned to a singular time when he looked for foil where foil should not be. It hadn’t turned up in Matthew’s room, so Adam had taken the search to Ronan’s instead. Sometimes, while Adam tried to fall asleep at night, he remembered the mattress under him as he sat down on the bed, the rippled feel of a hand-quilted comforter under his hand. Every shape and corner of a model car he’d pulled from a shelf had been committed to memory. God, when Ronan had sat down next to him, Adam had smelled tree-dappled sunshine and aftershave on him, suspended in a place where he could only hear the two of them breathing and the strained song the wheels a dream car made. Ronan had looked at him with such intent then that Adam held his breath, waiting, like watching a storm build in the distance and choosing to remain outside anyway.

Then Ronan’s long lashes hooded his eyes, and he got up from the bed. _“I’m gonna go downstairs,”_ he said.

Even now, it felt a little like Adam was still holding his breath.

He told Gansey about it, several months after they’d started living together, being together. He didn’t remember how it came up, just that he thought it was only fair that Gansey should know.

“I thought,” Adam mused quietly in the shadows of late night or early morning, his fingers tangled in Gansey’s, “I thought he was gonna kiss me.” _I kinda wanted him to._ He wasn’t sure if he’d said that part out loud.

Gansey squeezed his hand. There was something safe about all of this, where expressions couldn’t be seen, and therefore didn’t need to be hidden. They always forgot that words were more powerful between them than anything else.

“I know,” Gansey said carefully, “what that feels like.”

Adam knew better than to let jealousy have him then. Ronan and Gansey were just that, _Ronan-and-Gansey_ , Gansey-and-Ronan. If Ronan Lynch were going to kiss anyone in this world, Adam wouldn’t have been surprised for a moment if it had been Gansey.

“There were times when he’d look at me like I was something that would disappear,” Gansey continued. “Now, I’ll never be sure if it was because he was always surrounded by things that would leave him, or if he thought he’d drive me away himself.”

“Probably both,” Adam said.

“Probably both.”

Gansey’s thumb rubbed against the side of Adam’s hand, reminiscent of the way he often rubbed his lower lip.Thoughtful. Considering his next move.

“I thought Kavinsky had been the one to wreck the apartment,” he spoke of both with a tang of bitterness. He’d had little patience for Kavinsky and even less for anyone who would trample through the most intimate parts of him. “So Lynch took me. To one of those infamous degenerate substance parties at the old fairgrounds.”

Adam tried to wrap his brain around Gansey anywhere near one of _those_ kinds of parties, and it honestly made his head hurt.

“It was a night of many firsts for me. I had never been offered drugs before, and I certainly had never held a molotov cocktail before.”

Gansey couldn’t see it, but Adam’s eyebrows shot up into his hairline. Gansey must have sensed the reaction, because his laugh was low, a tone Adam wasn’t familiar with. It settled in his bones with a surprisingly pleasant thrum. _Gansey-on-Fire._

“I thought surely it would also be the first time I kissed my best friend, but alas, it was not to be. He looked at me like that, too, how you described. I was surprised to find how much I craved it.”

Adam could imagine it, the longing getting caught up in Gansey’s sleepless nights. Questioning, never really knowing if that had been Ronan’s real intention or if desiring him made it feel that way. Either way, the truth was out in the open, and there was something surprisingly pleasant knowing he wasn’t the only one. The same fondness he heard in Gansey’s voice now, no doubt had nestled itself somewhere in the way he talked about his experience too.

“You still do.” Adam didn’t ask because he was pretty sure he knew the answer.

“As do you, Parrish.” Gansey didn’t have to ask either.

Adam let that roll around in his lungs a little bit, settle into his bones and sift through his bloodstream for a few quiet moments. He didn’t hear Gansey breathing, which made him keenly aware he’d held his breath too. Ronan Lynch continued to have that effect on him. On both of them. He waited for it to feel like something bad, as if suddenly knowing this about one another made them feel any differently about being together. Gansey’s heartbeat was a living thing under Adam’s pulse, he could feel it where their wrists touched under the blankets, and even deeper where only magic could touch.

“What a fine mess, hm?” Gansey murmured.

And with that, the tension was gone.

“Just like always,” Adam agreed.

 _Just like always_.

### Nec Aspera Terrent ~ 1 

_They do not fear the difficulties_

**A** dam hung up the phone. It was almost 3AM, and he didn’t think he’d be able to go back to sleep. He padded out of the kitchen and over to the sliding door of the apartment balcony. Calling it a balcony was something of an overstatement; the depth of it was barely enough for a couple of potted plants, much less any sort of comfortable seating. But the concrete under his bare feet was reassuring enough, as was the bite of late October air on his skin. He put his elbows on the railing and pushed both hands into his hair, mentally running through his schedule for the next week. He hadn’t missed any of his classes, so he had absentee time available, and he could talk to his professors in the morning. An insidious little part of him wanted to pretend he couldn’t get out of his classes for fear of putting his grade at risk. But he knew he couldn’t. This inevitability had lived in his bones since the day he left Henrietta.

He just hadn’t expected it to happen so soon.

“Who was that?” Gansey’s voice, sleepy and soft, said behind him.

Adam flinched in spite of himself. He’d tried to keep quiet, but their cramped apartment was only so big and afforded very little privacy. Most of the time, they didn’t need it.

“Mom,” was all he said at first, and without looking, he could practically feel Gansey tense up.

Then Gansey was beside him, squeezing into the little space that allowed them both some air to breathe. He didn’t say anything else and Adam was grateful. He soaked up Gansey’s presence, letting it get caught up in the sounds of the city at night and his own pounding heart. Just the brush of their shoulders brought Adam some of the comfort of steady roots and soothing leaves whispering that he would be all right.

“The wake is Thursday and the funeral on Friday,” Adam murmured when he was ready.

Gansey breathed out in a loud rush. “Jesus. Parrish, I’m—”

“Don’t say something you don’t mean, Gansey.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Adam saw Gansey pout, a slight jut of his lower lip and a furrow in his brow. A couple of years ago, that would have been enough to start a fight. Now, they both tried to stop and think before they said things they didn’t really mean. Or if they did, an attempt was made to say it with grace.

“I can be sorry about what that means for you,” Gansey told him.

“Mm,” Adam conceded. Truth be told, he was already sorry about what that meant too.

“I’ll make arrangements to go back with you.”

“There’s no reason why both of us should miss our classes because of this,” Adam protested.

Gansey nudged him, and though he was smiling, he took no joy from the situation. It was more to give Adam some levity. If nothing else, Gansey always tried to lift the burden, even when it wasn’t his to bear. Instead of hating that about him, Adam had learned to appreciate it at arm’s length.

“It isn’t as if a few days will really harm the grade for either of us. Too sharp for that, Parrish. Whatever this means for you, you’re not enduring it alone, and my car is slightly more equipped to make the drive back to Henrietta than yours is.”

That got a snort of laughter from Adam. There was a very narrow margin in which the Pig was the better contender for a road trip than the shitbox. Both of them were living outside of their element and held together with literal dreams. Somehow, that only made him smile more with the need to give it right back to Gansey.

“You sure this isn’t just an excuse for you to see your old flame?”

Once more, Gansey’s lips pursed at the accusation. Adam could just hear him wondering how he dare slander his good intentions like that.

“Jane is probably halfway into some rainforest with Cheng right now,” he huffed. “But thank you for asking.”

Adam laughed and rolled his eyes. He hadn’t meant Blue Sargent in the slightest. “I was talking about Henrietta.”

Back when they’d first taken Blue on a helicopter ride to seek clues about Glendower, Gansey’s sister Helen had referred to their little town as Gansey’s girlfriend. In its own way, it still held Gansey’s heart in thrall; he’d gone back there twice since they’d started living together, once with Adam and once without. With the same fervor that Adam had tried to stay away from it, Gansey had made sure to keep going back to it. Adam had attributed it to being born on different ends of a silver spoon, but knowing Gansey as well as he did now meant that he could admit, even if only to himself, that it was more that he could never escape seeing Henrietta as if it were through the window of his old double wide.

“You’re a right bastard sometimes, Parrish. She and I are just friends now.”

“You sure do talk about her a lot for being just friends.”

“I was talking about Henrietta.”

Adam grinned over at him.. “So was I.”

A smile spread across Gansey’s face, and he finally dared to slide his arm around Adam’s waist, fingers digging in like he hoped to ground Adam in this moment before their world got shaken up again. “I’ll make arrangements,” he said again, in the tone that indicated he wouldn’t argue about it.

As self-sufficient and stubborn as Adam preferred to be, he didn’t want to face this by himself. So he’d let Gansey take the week off with him, and he’d probably let him drive, too. Every part of him screamed that he’d rather go to class. He’d rather take his midterms early, and hell, maybe his finals, too. He didn’t want to go back to Henrietta to see Robert Parrish buried. But he would do it, and he would survive it, just like he’d survived everything up to this point. He leaned into Gansey a little more than he would have liked, but Gansey just hummed encouragingly at the weight. He pushed up a little so he could press a kiss to Adam’s temple.

“You don’t have to do this by yourself.”

Adam sighed. “I know.”

/ 

_Can we crash at your place?_

Ronan found another black sock in the hallway and he cussed at himself or Chainsaw. Either one of them could have been the reason Ronan always seemed to be finding bits of his clothing where it didn’t belong in the house. Hampers were for people who didn’t live alone in a giant farmhouse full of dreams. Declan had made him set a laundry day, and it all got washed and put some semblance of away, so that was good e-fucking-nough. Normally, he didn’t give a shit if his clothes were out when someone came over, because that someone was usually Declan, and Matthew left bits of himself all over the townhouse in DC. Ronan was proud of him for that; the place was boring otherwise.

“So, what’s the occasion?” Declan asked.

Speaking of his boring older brother and his infinitely less boring younger brother, the two of them sat in his kitchen, eating the stew he’d made the day before. It was some kind of federal holiday, so Declan wasn’t working and Matthew had they day off from school. Outside, the sun was doing a very good job of trying to convince the world it wasn’t nearly November, beaming warmly over the country kitchen and spinning a little white lie, since their breaths would show if they went outside.

“You had the day off. I made stew,” Ronan answered tersely as he uncovered another shirt strewn over the back of the sofa in the sitting room.

“Yeah, but you never clean when we come over,” Matthew crowed. “Remember when you said Chainsaw put your boxers on the back of the toilet? I think that was you.”

“Shut it, Matty,” Ronan barked without any heat. “Chew with your mouth closed too, would you? Fuck.”

Finally, he thought he collected it all and he rejoined his brothers in the kitchen. He turned a chair to straddle it, silently pleased that their bowls were almost empty. No one was green around the edges, so he’d done it right. His mother’s recipe card still hung out next to the knife block from the night before. The loopy handwriting on it was Aurora’s, and he’d traced the divets that the pen strokes had left behind for a few minutes before starting the food. Maybe she’d be proud.

“Well?” Declan pressed.

“Fuck, Dec, it’s just Gansey and Parrish. Nothing exciting. It’s not anyone named Ashley.” He ran a hand over the back of his shaved head and ignored how Declan was glaring at him. Now it was more from the not so subtle dig than any concern over who Ronan might be letting in the Barns. Didn’t he know that Ronan didn’t find many people worthy of being at the Barns?

As the annoyance faded, Ronan was left with the same bland expression he was used to from Declan. Except for the way a single eyebrow had quirked.

“Fall break isn’t for a while.” That was Declan’s way of asking why; He was always asking things with no question marks.

“Parrish’s old man bit it.”

Even that much tasted terrible on Ronan’s tongue. He hated admitting that absolute piece of shit had shared anything with Adam, including and especially blood or a surname. He didn’t deserve who Adam was, and Ronan had thought a lot about punching him more since the fight outside their trailer. His knuckles in that fucker’s face for every bruise Adam had ever come to class with, shouting him down for everything Adam would never hear from his left ear again. He didn’t realize his fists were clenched on the table until Matthew made another loud chewing noise, and he them out, daring either of them to say anything about it. The way Declan looked at him meant he knew what Ronan’s behavior said without words. Maybe more than Ronan would have liked.

“What?” he snapped.

“Nothing. You said Gansey is coming with him?”

“Yeah.”

“Mm.”

Ronan didn’t like what that sound meant. He didn’t care about the circumstances, Parrish and Gansey were coming home. The summer they graduated Aglionby, Gansey went on a road trip with Sargent and Cheng to find himself or save the world or something. Then that fall, Adam started college and left, too. Ronan hadn’t wanted to go on a road trip with Sargent and Cheng and he sure as fuck hadn’t wanted to go to college. He missed them like a goddamn limb. But he’d stopped himself when he’d taken Gansey home from Kavinsky’s substance party, Gansey’s bright clothes still smelling of smoke and exhaust. He’d held back when he found Adam sitting on his childhood bed with one of his old toys in those beautiful hands. There were some things that weren’t worth losing friends over, especially when Ronan Lynch didn’t have many to spare. God had heard so many conflicting things from him when he prayed at church, when he prayed under the stars or up in the lofts or in his dreaming barn. _Please_ , but also, _no, thank you_. They were still close enough to know where home was when it mattered. That was enough.

Ronan got up from the table. He took note of Matthew’s empty bowl and ruffled his golden curls. “Smash Brothers?” he asked, feeling Declan’s gaze on him still.

“You’re goin’ down!” Matthew proclaimed, jumping up to go turn on the gaming system in the other room, making so much noise as he did.

Now Ronan looked at Declan, who looked back calmly as he wiped his mouth.

Neither of them said anything. It was always better that way.


	2. Eonian

_Constant and indefinite_

**G** ansey had chosen Harvard after the year-long road trip had ended. Not entirely because Adam had been accepted there as well, but Gansey didn’t doubt for a second that had been a factor in his decision. In the downtime between saving rain forests and advocating for rights of many shapes and sizes, he’d started filling out college applications. He’d worked very hard to finish at Aglionby with high marks so that few places would tell him no when the time was finally right. When he’d returned to his parents’ old money home back in Virginia, he’d had several acceptance letters to choose from.

After living in Monmouth for most of his high school life, Gansey knew he wouldn’t be cut out for a dorm room, so he’d scouted apartments and used his good name and responsible habits to obtain one not too far from campus. He got himself a job at one of the many libraries, and he did his best not to touch his credit cards unless he absolutely had to. He’d learned a lot about making his own way, and he’d learned it from tiny, capable, sensible Blue Sargent. It wasn’t entirely sustainable, not without flunking out of his first semester, but he needed to do it. It was on that common ground that he’d started over with Adam Parrish.

Adam and Gansey were very good friends, in the way that only two people who’d come from opposite ends of income brackets could be. Both of them had hearts the size of an ageless tree, and the roots of their origins were entangled in Henrietta’s small town soil. Gansey had wanted to help, Adam had wanted to do it on his own. They had a fatal flaw of both thinking they’d known what had been best for Adam. Both of them were very good at hurting each other without trying. Despite all this, they would live and die for one another. Gansey and Parrish, King and Magician, Harvard students.

Boyfriends.

They shared another thing in common — a deep and abiding love for Ronan Lynch. Fights in their high school days had been resolved by not speaking for days, wary acceptance and stubborn insistence to continue on with life as they knew it. Now they ended fights with one of them asking, “What would Lynch say about all this?” And it was over. They lay against each other and laughed about his foul language and inherent ability to either create all the tension or suck it completely out of the room. They couldn’t talk about dreams without thinking of Ronan, and it showed.

/

For Gansey, the Barns felt as much like coming home as Henrietta did. Perhaps even more so, since the Barns had been full of people who’d come to treat him like family. There was never a time when he didn’t drive carefully down the gravel road leading to Ronan’s house, feeling adoration and ebbing homesickness. Time and unfortunate circumstances had picked off the number of people who would be waiting for him there, but the most important of them always was. In the passenger seat, Adam looked more awake and alert, his posture bent forward in quiet eagerness. Gansey knew Henrietta would never feel the same to Adam as it did for him, but the Barns. Oh, _the Barns_.

Gansey forgot about the overstuffed satchels in his backseat, Harvard a world away now that they had arrived. He took his rightful spot next to Ronan’s BMW and let the Pig idle while he took it all in. It had been too cold to drive down the highway with the windows open, but now that they were no longer moving, he cracked the window and breathed in. Adam had the right idea though, grasping the handle and gliding out to stretch himself to the sky. Gansey watched the curve of his spine and the way his shirt rode up ever so slightly.

“Home sweet home,” he said to himself, and turned off the car.

The front door opened just as Gansey climbed out and also stretched. Ronan’s dark shape filled the doorway, and immediately had both his and Adam’s attention. In the time that they’d been gone, Ronan had grown no taller, his head was still shaved and he wore black like a second skin. But at the Barns, he was king, and there was something about knowing that on a visceral level that got Gansey’s heart pumping harder in his chest. Looking at Ronan inspired all sorts of things in his mind, but it also pulled on things deeper in him that didn’t have easy words to describe them. He kind of liked that, the phantom pull of a dreamer in a place made to hold dreams.

“About damn time,” Ronan shouted across the yard. “Parrish, I can’t believe you let the old man drive.”

Adam shrugged, as if Gansey driving had been an inevitability he couldn’t fight. Gansey saw the motion out of the corner of his eye, and couldn’t help wanting to see his expression. There it was. _That._ Gansey knew what that look meant in Adam’s eyes. As if he knew that he was being seen, he glanced back at Gansey. Neither of them could really help it, not when it came to Ronan. A dozen nights of exhausted conversation, sleepy admissions and dangerous fantasies tumbled forward in a single exchange of heated looks. Neither of them would ever decide to stay anywhere else; the Barns was the only choice. But, heavens, it would be a test of their restraint. Though Gansey had been learning to have it where appropriate, he’d also been given a taste of life without it, and Ronan Lynch had never been good for his inhibitions.

They both loved him fiercely.

He greeted Adam first only because he was closer. They bumped knuckles and exchanged surnames. Ronan told him he looked like shit, which was his way of reminding Adam he could tell when Adam hadn’t been sleeping much. Adam called him a rude, yet accurate, name and they grinned at one another like fiends. Gansey’s heart was still pounding. Ronan called him an old man again, and Gansey didn’t argue it. There were days when he felt like he’d lived as many centuries as Glendower had been dead, and then some. But he didn’t settle for a mere fistbump, he reached up for Ronan, like he’d done when things were simpler, holding him closely, tightly. Ronan grumbled something unintelligible under his ear, and it was probably Latin, but he didn’t try to get away. Gansey felt like equilibrium had returned.

“Don’t just stand out here like idiots,” Ronan said when they broke apart. “Gimme something to carry and let’s go inside. It’s fuckin’ cold out here.”

As they unloaded the car, Gansey couldn’t help thinking Ronan was wrong. He was warm all over, and the tremble in Adam’s hands probably wasn’t from the chill. When they walked to the house, both he and Adam stayed a few steps behind Ronan. So much for restraint.

/

Gansey pressed his lips into Adam’s shoulder to muffle the sounds he made as he rolled his hips. He could feel Adam’s fingertips in his back, blunt nails dragging down his spine. Both of them breathed heavy in the darkness. It should have felt wrong, Gansey straddling Adam’s lap and riding him as quietly as possible in the front room of Ronan’s family home. Instead it felt like another thrill, stacked on a slowly building pyre of yearning thoughts upon which to burn their hearts on. Despite being at the Barns, or maybe because of it, the moment the lights had been turned off, their hands scrabbled to claim skin. Parrish kissed him like he’d starve unless he tasted Gansey, let his teeth sink into soft lips. Gansey tugged at Adam’s nightshirt like he’d wither without the feel of his warm skin under his touch.

Ronan had retreated up to his room, and both Adam and Gansey had listened half-attentively to the progression of his footsteps as he got ready for bed. As everything fell quiet, save the chittering of night critters beyond the house, that’s when clothing got tugged aside and hands took bigger chances. Mouths were greedy and pressed to skin in a desperate attempt to keep quiet and leave marks. They didn’t need to talk about it, they knew what had stoked the blaze, or rather _who_ , and he was probably sound asleep. Dreaming. God, his _dreaming_.

Gansey could never qualify making love to Adam with any of the right words. Fast and slow, frantic and careful, they were ever and always feeling one another out. Their responses had more to do with instinct than any coherent thought. That in itself was an anomaly for both of them, who tended to overthink and analyze practically to a fault. Not now, not like this. Their bond, their way of _knowing_ one another often led the way for how best to touch and claim. Tonight, Adam wanted to have Gansey, held him and coaxed out pleasure anywhere he could, be it in the way he met Gansey’s hips with his own or how he stroked Gansey to see how he’d get him to come first. Gansey worked very similarly, determined to sate Adam in every way he could. Sometimes it felt like they could be at this the whole night, and yet their completion came too quickly. Gansey’s forehead pressed to Adam’s as he rocked eagerly through the peak of it, breathless and murmuring his name like a prayer. Adam shuddered beneath him, holding tight, biting on his lip and swallowing down his own sounds just so he could hear the ones Gansey made for him. Slowly, they came down through the afterglow together.

Adam made direct eye contact as he lifted his hand from Gansey’s flagging cock. Knowing Gansey wouldn’t look away, he dragged his tongue along each of his fingers, all of his movements washed in deep shadow and the glow of a single night light on the other side of the room. Gansey shivered, his arms draped loosely over Adam’s shoulders while he rocked languidly on his lap.

“Villain,” he accused fondly in his post-coital rumble.

Unrepentant, Adam sucked the pad of his thumb until Gansey pushed his hand away to kiss him. The urgency had ebbed in the wake of climax, and now Gansey’s tongue took it’s time tasting himself right from Adam’s mouth. He felt heavy and drowsy, humming in the back of his throat while he savored being ravished and full. Adam was as thorough with Gansey’s body as he was the elements of the ley line, fingers digging deep to bring colors to the surface as one would turn fresh soil. Their lovemaking tended to feel like ritual, no matter how clumsy or desperate they were. Adam could turn over and rearrange parts of Gansey until they felt right again, and he didn’t dare fight it for an instant. He pulled back with a contented sigh that whispered his adoration without shaping it into words. As if he understood, Adam pressed his nose beneath Gansey’s ear and lay a kiss against his pulse.

It took them a little longer to separate completely, time stretching between them in the nebulous way it seemed to flow in Ronan’s place of power. Adam stole Gansey’s shirt to clean them up, just to hear him fuss, bearing the good-natured jab of his elbow in protest, then settled next to him beneath the blanket. Arms and legs tangled up, they sought one another’s pulses, the cadence of their breathing, and drifted off to sleep.


	3. Semper Ad Meliora

_ Always toward better things _

**A** dam felt it the moment he opened his. Waking up at the Barns was different from waking up in Cambridge. Staring at the ceiling with its exposed beams, he drew in a slow breath. Everything was different here, even the air tasted different, the water. He idly marked the differences because they were important. Seemingly inconsequential to anyone who wasn’t Adam Parrish, but each felt like something more. Not a burden to be carried, but comforts to be held close. His fingertips played over the worn dips and turns of a crocheted throw, the top layer in a pile of mismatched blankets draped over him and Gansey where they slept in a nest of pillows on the sitting room floor.

With his good ear on Gansey’s side of their not-bed, he listened to deep breathing while the corner of his mouth tried to smile. Gansey always took care to sleep next to his good side. He joked that if they were going to share a bed, Adam might as well get the full experience when he snored or talked in his sleep. Adam never told Gansey how many times he woke up in the middle of the night and listened until he could hear Gansey breathing. It was true, he did snore from time to time, but Adam only really minded in that precious two hour nap between an all-nighter and an exam. Even then, Adam knew any sleep he didn’t get was his own fault and easily forgave Gansey for turning it into a ninety minute nap instead.

Adam noted Gansey slept better at the Barns. He slept better in general after dying a second time, as if his body were making up for all the nights he’d lain awake, forty-eight-to-seventy-two hour swaths of unwilling, restless wakefulness in his quest.  _ Good _ , Adam had thought, the first time Gansey slept through an entire day. The fact that Gansey lived to lay next to him most nights sometimes felt like a testament to Adam’s worth; even when Gansey snored. 

Being at the Barns meant that Adam woke up with peace in the air and magic in his lungs. At Cambridge, the hustle of students just like himself, all of the studying and lectures, common room card games and elbow-bumping with peers, all of that shushed the hum of the ley line reaching for him. Here in Virginia, at Singer’s Falls, the magic welcomed him home. As Adam’s fingertips learned the soft textures of the throw, he reminded himself that home wasn’t at his old trailer in Henrietta, it was underground and tangled in the roots of trees who knew his name, his hands and his eyes.

Adam sat up carefully, disentangling himself from the nest while trying not to wake Gansey. It was habit now to hover close once he’d left the bed. He closed his eyes, listened with his good ear until it was just Gansey’s breath, in-out-in-out, and he reached for the ley line. This was so much easier to do at the Barns; everything was so much closer, in easy reach. Home was underground, where the ley line surged up gently to greet him. It carried with him the feel of Gansey’s heart, beating in off-rhythm to Adam’s own. Between them, connecting them, the ley line. He could have reached out to touch Gansey physically, and his hands knew the shape of him, the softness of his skin, but Adam Parrish was occasionally a selfish creature, and this deeper touch was something that didn’t cost either of them anything in his selfishness. If anything, it gave something back. Gansey hummed softly in his sleep, and Adam opened his eyes. Even back in the real world, or as close to it as someplace like the Barns could get, he felt Gansey’s heart as if it pumped next to his own.

This ritual was something he did often at Cambridge, but it had a distant quality to it, the ley line working a little harder, flowers straining to reach the sun, but waking up at the Barns was different from waking up at Cambridge. Satisfied with the echo of Gansey’s pulse under his, Adam stood up and went to wash his face and brush his teeth. Ronan had put out fresh towels for them, and he pressed one of them to his face, breathing in. Back at the trailer, his mother had used some kind of dryer sheets in a bright blue box that boldly proclaimed “summer fresh scent!” in yellow letters. The towels in Ronan Lynch’s bathroom actually smelled like summer the way Adam remembered it in Cabeswater, and he couldn’t help wondering if it was because Ronan dried them on a line outside or if he’d dreamed them specially for company. With Ronan, either was possible. Adam placed the towel back on the rod, straightening and smoothing it to his satisfaction, then made his way to the kitchen. There was a half full pot of coffee still warming on its hot plate, two mugs set out waiting to be used. The house had the feel of being empty but not vacant, quiet in a way that felt anticipatory. Adam wouldn’t have to worry about waking Ronan because he’d already gotten up and was likely out on the property fixing something or feeding something.

Adam smiled and picked up one of the mugs. On the outside, it said “[seductively takes off glasses]’ and on the inside lip, the punchline became, ‘wow you’re fucking blurry’. Adam set the cup back down again. That one was for Gansey. He picked up the one meant for him and turned it until he saw “And then Satan said, ‘put the alphabet in math.’” Perfect. He poured some coffee and doctored it from the mismatched creamer and sugar bowl, stirring thoughtfully with a spoon. Despite all the anxiety attempting to knot up his stomach, it felt like a faraway thing in this carefully prepared morning. Adam took a sip, stared into the contents of his mug and took a deep breath. He was surrounded by the magic of the Barns, ley line pulsing close by, Gansey close by.

His breathing evened out, blinking slowed until it stopped altogether. King and magician were here, and Adam dug his consciousness into the soft, dew covered ground outside. Pressed through the dirt and growing things until the line greeted him there as well. He followed it to the dreamer. Without leaving the kitchen, he found himself outside, nearly at the edges of where the Barns transitioned from rolling pastures to old trees. There, Ronan stood at the edge, like walking between awake and asleep, for there he fed creatures of all kinds. Some that looked at home in this world, and some the shape of storybook familiars and imaginary friends wandering the realm of reality. With Ronan, dreams were reality and vice versa. It was a magic Adam could follow time and again, and just when he’d touched on a third pulse, Ronan sucked in his breath and turned to look over his shoulder. Of course he couldn’t see Adam there, but something about the way his expression evened out said he knew. He heaved a soundless sigh that rucked up his shoulders, emptying his bucket at the edge of the forest and turning to head back. Adam lingered to watch the creatures feed, noting sizes and colors, mouths with teeth, heavy hooves, patterned fur. They looked back at him as if they could see him, their eyes far more understanding than inhuman creatures should be. One by one, they began to retreat. If he followed them, where would they lead?

_ Snap. _

Adam blinked and found a pale, scarred hand between him and the steaming coffee in his mug. Looking up, he let his gaze trail along leather bands and soft skin, ending at Ronan’s rolled sleeve, cuffed just above the elbow. It was an old black t-shirt. Ronan always looked so at home in black. The tendons in Ronan’s throat worked as he swallowed, and this time his sigh was audible, exasperated. Adam heard him exhale through pursed lips, let his gaze linger on Ronan’s mouth before meeting his eyes. They didn’t say anything at all for a moment. There were a lot of times they didn’t need to.

“I hope you don’t do that shit in public,” Ronan finally said.

Adam shrugged noncommittally. “I’ve only gotten kicked out of two cafes so far.”

“Ass,” Ronan accused, and Adam didn’t deny it. Took one to know one, after all.

Ronan unhooked a battered travel thermos from one of his belt loops and set it on the counter. That was black too.

“Gans’ still out?”

“Yeah.”

“He won’t be needing this, then. I’ll make him a new pot.”

Ronan refilled his tumbler and added some cream. Adam looked down at his mug, thinking about those animals. About Ronan’s shoulders. He drank. It was really good coffee.

Screwing the cap back on his thermos, Ronan turned his attention back to Adam. “How’s he been?”

Well, Adam hadn’t  _ actually _ gotten himself kicked out of any cafes while they’d been away, but he’d had to pull Gansey outside his own head a few times, some in more public places than others. It hadn’t been nearly as bad as any of them had first seen over a year ago, and for that he was grateful.

“Better,” is what he said out loud, but he felt Ronan’s eyes on him. “I think college life does him good.”

Ronan snorted, but he didn’t argue. Ronan tended to think college was good for everyone except him. “You okay?” he finally asked.

It was surprisingly gentle, if the harsh way words tended to slip out of Ronan’s mouth could be gentle. Adam felt like only a small list of people really knew how to tell. Sometimes he was one of them, and sometimes he didn’t want to hear it, so he didn’t.

“Peachy keen,” he said because he wasn’t.

Ronan bristled. “Great,” he said because he knew.

Sighing, Adam shrugged. “I dunno what I am. I guess I’m doing this for Mom. Maybe for me. Dunno what’s actually okay right now, other than being here.”

He saw approval on Ronan’s face now, because Adam had been honest that time. Ronan didn’t like liars and Gansey always preferred the truth. The two of them made it really difficult for Adam to shape himself into something more passable for them. For him, it was easier to put everything about Henrietta, his father and that trailer behind him. But he couldn’t do that without dismissing Aglionby, his friends, and Glendower too. All of those things had made an entirely different kind of home in his bones. Magic lived inside him, and he could already feel the difference after a single night at the Barns.

It got under his skin how easily he could walk away from his life in Cambridge. He’d walked away from his life in Henrietta in much the same fashion, knowing he’d fought all this time for something better, to be something more. Even when Gansey had started courses with him at Harvard, he could still keep his eyes forward and embrace what it meant to have a king for a roommate, for a partner. The Barns lived and breathed magic. Most of it was Ronan’s dream magic, but it had the ley line beneath it, the power of the mountains not terribly far away. 

For not the first time, Adam Parrish knew that he could have made a life here, too, surrounded by all the reminders that he was more than trailer-born, more than Harvard-bound. He was a  _ magician _ . When he thought about it too long, especially after so recently touching the ley line, going back to the life other people lived felt ridiculous and absurd.

“Parrish,” Ronan grumbled. “Shithead, knock it off. Next time, I’ll let you drown in that coffee.”

Adam blinked, and sure enough, he’d started to stare in it again, but he hadn’t gone as far as last time, only into his own head. Sometimes, that was just as bad.

“That’d be a waste,” Adam said sincerely.

“You’re staying the weekend,” Ronan told him. 

Adam was back in the present without hesitation, his heart beating a little faster. “Are we? Do we have plans?”

Ronan confirmed nothing. Under Adam’s pulse, he could feel Ronan. He could feel Gansey. And he could taste magic hovering so close. From another room in the house, Chainsaw screeched an announcement, and it was followed by the barest whisper of laughter.

“His highness is up,” Ronan said. “Better make more coffee.”


	4. Familia Ante Omnia

_Family over all_

**B** lue couldn’t keep still in the passenger seat of Henry’s car, watching excitedly out the window as they turned down the gravel road leading to the Barns. As the canopy of trees closed in on her, her breath caught and she leaned forward that much more. Ever since the first time she’d been brought, not even the distasteful act of burying a nightmare could have stopped her from feeling the magic here. One didn’t need psychic ability to know it thrived in Singer’s Falls, especially not if you already believed in magic in the first place. Blue had never struggled to believe, but it wasn’t until she met Gansey that she learned how she could also _feel_. Even though she much preferred the visits she made under better circumstances, her heart couldn’t help filling with joy at the thought of coming together with everyone who felt like home. 

“Hrm,” Henry hummed over his music. He craned his neck, getting a look around at all the green and open skies. “Never would have imagined Lynch a country boy. A little too - Hot Topic, you know?”

“He’s not exactly what you’d expect under that bastard exterior,” Blue replied distractedly. 

“I think what we have beneath the thin veneer of the socially acceptable is what makes us all so compatible. Or at least keeps us from each other’s throats.”

“Also the magic thing.”

Henry laughed. “Yes, also the magic thing.”

The gravel path serving as the driveway panned out before a row of boxwood, and the Pig couldn’t be missed parked next to Ronan’s more shadowy BMW. Blue barely waited until the car was in park before she unbuckled her seatbelt to tumble out. She ducked behind her seat to snatch up a large pan wrapped in foil, hefting it up to carry in with her while Henry fetched her duffel bag. Chainsaw squawked from a nearby tree, announcing their arrival before she swooped down to the porch railing to meet Blue there. The front door jerked open, and there was Ronan, Gansey and Adam right behind him. 

“Jane!” Gansey greeted her.

Ronan moved out of the way so Gansey could get out to wrap an arm around her. Blue leaned into him, still holding the pan, but relieved to be near him again. Gansey kissed the top of her head, and she pushed up onto her toes to kiss his cheek. 

“Ahh, your majesty, we return at last!” Henry climbed up the stairs next and Blue giggled as they sandwiched her between them to exchange kisses on each cheek like some foreign princes at a ball. 

“Gross,” Ronan muttered, watching Blue wriggle out from between them. He jerked his elbow toward the pan. “What’s that?”

“The ladies made a casserole. We stopped by on the way here,” Blue said proudly, offering it up for him to take. “You’re welcome.”

Ronan wrinkled his nose down at it. “Is it edible?”

Adam jabbed him in the ribs. “Don’t be a dick, Lynch.”

“Chronic condition. But seriously, does it have eye of newt or toe of frog and some shit in there?”

“What the fuck, Ronan,” Blue huffed, crossing her arms and glaring at him. She hated that she had to crane her neck to do it. A year of traveling and personal growth seemed to have done nothing for her physical one. She consoled herself that she could still kick some very uncomfortable places, if push came to shove. “We only break out the cauldron for special occasions. You don’t have to be a jerk about my family.”

Gansey opened his mouth, prepared to diffuse a fight, but Ronan turned his back on them to go inside. 

“Eye of newt is mustard seed anyway, maggot” he shot back over his shoulder. 

Blue yanked the door open to stalk inside, leaving Adam, Gansey and Henry to smirk at one another and shake their heads before making their way after them. 

“You don’t think I know that already? Witches know how to translate the old Latin too, dumbass,” Blue continued on. “Not our fault Shakespeare gets taught to rich boys who don’t even know what culture is.”

“Don’t act like capitalist fuckheads didn’t ruin Macbeth long before they started teaching it in schools. Not my fault you can’t take a joke.”

“Don’t use the holy cross up your ass to make fun of my family when they’re doing something nice,” she snatched the pan out of his hands before he could put it down and set it on the table, “It’s for Adam anyway.”

“Well, aren’t they a lively pair.” Henry leaned against Gansey’s shoulder. “Color me impressed that Lynch knew his Shakespeare.”

“I’m standing right here, Cheng, and you’re not fucking subtle.”

“Ronan actually knows quite a bit about literature and language,” Gansey told him. “Though, as with most things, it will ever be on his terms or not at all when that knowledge is revealed.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Ronan huffed, but he busied himself with making coffee anyway. 

“Thanks, Blue,” Adam said.

He touched her arm lightly, the gesture awkward but sincere. Blue wished that, even after all this time, it still didn’t have to feel like things were strained between them. She wanted to believe it had more to do with the situation than her, but it was a conversation they would have some other time. The fact that he touched her at all was something of a relief. Even in the best of times, Adam was fiercely guarded, and the fact that their gathering had to do with his dad didn’t imply much in the way of good times other than them being together again. 

Blue didn’t quite smile, but she could feel her expression soften for him. She telegraphed her intention to hug him by opening her arms and waiting for him to either shake his head or let her in. He brushed her arm again with his fingertips and she held him loosely around the waist. She didn’t think he’d want her to apologize, and she was pretty sure she didn’t actually feel sorry, so she said nothing. Finally, he curled around her a bit, his arms making a tight circle around her shoulders. The squeeze felt like reassurance, not just for himself, but for both of them. They were okay.

“Parrish,” Henry greeted when Blue pulled away. 

He extended his hand, and Adam looked at it for a moment before clasping it in a firm shake. 

“Thanks for coming, Henry.”

“Don’t you worry at all, it was my pleasure to bring Blue back for a while. Gives me an excuse to see who’s kicking about from the Vancouver crowd. Mrs. Woo would be pretty put out with me if I was in town and didn’t stop by to check in.” 

Adam’s brow furrowed. He looked conflicted about whether he should say something in response to that, but Henry didn’t give him much of a chance. The grin he flashed to Adam showed he knew what his answer would be regardless. “Look, this is already going to be a _thing_ for you, and the last thing you need is redneck America putting a target sign on your back for the shape of my beautiful eyes, you feel? So! I'm leaving RoboBee with my child bride and I stand with you in spirit."

“Jesus,” Ronan grumbled from the sink.

Blue winced, watching Adam’s face from the corner of her eye. Henry looked unrepentant; he was doing what was best for Adam, no matter how it sounded to say it out loud. 

“Yeah,” Adam agreed. “Yeah, Cheng, thanks.”

He beamed. “Splendid! Then if nobody minds, I’ll stay long enough to enjoy a cup of coffee with the king and his court, and then I’ll be on my merry way!”

/

The casserole, in fact, did not have tongue of newt or toe of frog in it, but instead an incredible concoction of chicken, bacon and mac’n’cheese. Not even a single noodle remained after the entire group fell to ravaging it, and after, they washed and dried all the dishes. Full of food and relatively content, Blue’s luggage joined Adam’s and Gansey’s in the living room and they flopped out over sofas and overstuffed chairs. Henry did not actually get on his merry way. Instead, stories of good causes, ridiculous term papers and dreamt livestock went ‘round as Ronan built them a fire in the hearth. They migrated back to the kitchen to collaboratively make hot chocolates and a mighty mess. 

Sometime after midnight, Ronan got up to procure a long, thin box that had been loved by time and the hands of eager, competitive children. Wordlessly, he set it down in the middle of their blankets, pillows and half-full mugs, dark eyebrow raised in question, challenge, or both. Gansey peered over at the box, its faded primary colors and worn letters touching something in him that softened his mirth into fondness. As Ronan expected, Gansey remembered it. 

Blue made a noise of delight. “I haven’t played this in a long time.”

Henry reached out and respectfully pulled off the box top, freeing the board and a deck of cards, along with the tokens. “Hmm, I’ve not played this, but something tells me that despite the sheer number of apologies on everything, no one playing it is ever very sorry.”

Ronan grinned fiendishly at him, and that was all the confirmation anyone needed on that. Even Gansey had a little fierceness to his smile now — the Lynch brothers had given him no choice but to fight for his life to win the game. Seeing it here seemed to close a rift between life _then_ and _now_. Blue leaned in to start setting up the board, showing Henry where to put the cards and the pieces. The only one who didn’t look ready for a board game shakedown was Adam. Ronan nudged him with his elbow. 

“What’s your damage, Parrish?” 

Expressionless, Adam shrugged and jabbed him back. “There are five of us for a four-player game. I’ll watch.”

Ronan’s eyes narrowed, and he took a moment to read between the lines. “Fuck that, you’re in and you’re green. Learn by doing, asshole.”

“Lynch,” Gansey scolded in that voice of his. He added, “He’s right, Adam. It’s not terribly difficult. Point A to point B, stay alive.”

The line of Adam’s lips thinned out further and Ronan bit back the urge to remind him that wasn’t that much different from the norm. “I’ll sit out this round. But as soon as one of you fuckers wins, I’m taking your pieces and jumping in to take on who’s left.”

Gansey leaned in to kiss Adam’s jaw affectionately. “Please,” he murmured, “if it’s any consolation, Ronan had to teach me how to play as well. I got my ass well and thoroughly handed to me, and as Henry so eloquently concluded, everyone said they were sorry, but they were decidedly not. I’m certain you’ll do better than I.”

It did something to Ronan’s insides to see the way Adam’s rigid posture changed slightly. 

“Fine.”

Blue let out a little whoop. “I’ll start!”

“Height order, got it,” Ronan said, rolling his eyes.

She flashed her middle finger at him and turned over the first card. 

Adam did indeed fare well, easing comfortably into the game the further it progressed, under Ronan’s watchful eye. It was different than playing the game with his brothers had been. The times were much simpler, or at least it had seemed so to that younger Ronan, who still had so much to learn about himself and the world he held in his head. But Henry shared Matthew’s cheery optimism and determination to win through pacifism. Ronan would have believed it if he said he felt genuinely sorry to bump anyone back to their start. Contradictory to her ‘save the planet’ stance, Blue didn’t give a good goddamn about saving any of them on the board, ruthless in a way Ronan appreciated mightily without admitting out loud. Gansey played like Declan, reserved like a poker player and tactical with his splits and swaps. The differences were there, but _then and now_ , but that didn’t change how right it was to fill this room with bonds as strong as blood, deep as oceans and the simplicity of a childhood game. 

In a stunning turn of events, Henry slid the last red token home first and smiled at Ronan in a disarming way that strongly encouraged him to wreck the other three left, politely. Ronan was all too eager to comply. The minute he drew his card, Gansey and Adam both looked at him, an unspoken challenge, _catch us if you can_. Ronan wanted to flip the board, make a mess of cards and pieces the way his guts felt when they looked at him like that. It made reality a nebulous thing, like tomorrow afternoon was as far away as the next galaxy, where it couldn’t touch them. He would keep them here forever if he could. 

Ronan chased them across the board and tried not to think about what it would be like to catch them for real.


	5. Lucest Lux Vestra

_Let your light shine_

**E** ven in complete darkness, Ronan knew he was safe. In the waking world, night could never be so complete; that world had millions of winking stars, and even the barest sliver of a new moon betrayed all the layers of velvety blue-purple-black in the sky. There was light pollution in big cities, always something that interrupted the absolute stillness that night could be. So if he couldn’t have it in the waking world, he could have it in his dreams. Ronan laughed, but it made no sound. All he could do was feel the motions of it, his lungs taking in the breath and the way it beat at his throat with tattered wings to get out of his mouth. He wanted to hide, so his dreams gave him refuge. Even in the endless void, the perfect hiding place, the feel of his heart grasping for something as familiar as the stretch of his fingers for something soft. He couldn’t see them before him, these fumbling hands, but he could feel the strain in his arms, the longing in his chest. 

And then, when he was finally ready to come out of hiding, he wrapped his arms around a fullness of life he couldn’t see. It brushed against his cheeks, tickled his forearms, alive and wondrous. He slid into the in-between of dreaming and waking, unable to see himself as he always did, the darkness so thorough he worried he might have brought it all back with him. 

Would it be so bad, he wondered as numbness became tingling, if he brought back a place to hide for everyone? Nothing could hurt them if nothing could find them.

Ronan opened his eyes, squinting at the moonlight through his window, the beams of the ceiling stretching and casting their shadows over his bed. He barely had time to mourn coming out of hiding before he sank back into dreamless sleep.

/

Chainsaw’s shriek worked better than any alarm clock Ronan had ever had. Especially when the ‘ringtone’ was her gleeful trill. Gleeful in her language meant troublemaking in Ronan’s. He rolled onto his side, toward the sound, just as she made it again. When he opened his eyes, he first saw a pop of blue. Then red. And yellow. A flurry of black feathers betrayed Chainsaw as she romped over the top of his bed, rolling around in the splashes of color. Paint? No… Ronan blinked his eyes furiously until the splotches became petals became flowers. Beneath them, pitch black, stretching out over the whole length and width of the bed, draped over him like another blanket. 

“Fuck.” 

Ronan pushed himself upright, and the night blanket slid off of him as if it were made out of some impossibly soft fabric. Strewn all across this inky bedspread were vivid, electric blue lilies, sunflowers that looked gold-dipped and plush poppies as red as fresh blood. Chainsaw happily picked up one after the other to wave it around like a banner, pausing occasionally to roll around in them like she was bathing herself in color. Sometimes, when she did, the tufted seeds of a dandelion fluttered up and drifted back down. Ronan glowered at the whole mess of it, including his raven, then flopped back onto his pillows. 

“ _Kerah_?” 

Chainsaw helpfully toddled over and flung first a sunflower onto his chest, then a poppy, and proceeded to climb on him and sit contentedly, as if she’d solved all his problems.

Ronan draped his arm over his face and sighed. It was going to be a long day.

/

Blue was kneeling on one of the counters when Ronan came into the kitchen. She flashed him a grin over her shoulder. “Oh good, now I don’t have to guess where everything is anymore.”

Not that she’d done a bad job in the first place. A mixing bowl and whisks sat next to the flour and sugar canisters. Blue managed to find where he stashed the vanilla and baking powder and even the cinnamon; they were tucked against her arm. Not a single container matched, and that was the beauty of the Barns. Things got used because they matched the heart, not colors or patterns. It reminded Blue a lot of growing up at 300 Fox Way. Their dishes and appliances cobbled together from the collections of the women who lived there or the ones that had landed there to heal their broken hearts or tattered spirits. In spite of herself, she felt a kinship here, a home away from home. It started on a rainy day when the grass welcomed her to run barefoot among the trees and brought her to this moment of scrambling across counters to fetch things on high shelves. 

Bracing herself, she leapt down and set down her ingredients. She finally got a good look at Ronan, who watched her like a hawk. She didn’t have to question how sacred this place, and everything in it, was to him. He had an armload of fresh flowers and Chainsaw on his shoulder. She recognized the blooms as dream things, plush and brightly colored, normal-presenting but _different_ , like all of them. Even Blue couldn’t claim ‘normal’ after falling in with her Raven Boys. Not being clairvoyant didn’t seem to matter when the touch of her lips had taken a life and saved the world. She wondered if Ronan had dreamt them last night, and if they meant he was glad they were home. She wondered if he knew his dark and broody routine wasn’t fooling anyone. 

“Looks like you raided my goddamn kitchen just fine,” Ronan grumbled. “Get me a vase. They’re under the sink.”

“Do you think they need water if you dreamt them?” Blue asked, bending down to retrieve the vase. 

Under the sink, there was a collection of them, varying shapes and sizes, not a single one like the other. She picked the largest one, a clear glass bowl with multicolored bubbles scattered throughout. 

“They’re fucking flowers, they’re going in water.” 

Blue was already filling the vase-bowl anyway, and she set it down in the middle of the table. Wordlessly, they arranged the mass of stems so that the gold, red and blue could all be seen and practically glowed. Blue leaned in to peer at them, breathing in to see if they had a scent. She wrinkled her nose; they smelled faintly like pine and aftershave. Carefully, she plucked something off one of the sunflowers that looked at first like lint, but actually turned out to be the puff of a dandelion. Upon closer inspection of Ronan and Chainsaw, both of them had those little fronds in sticking to feathers and fabric. If he noticed her scrutiny, he didn’t say so. 

“What are you making for breakfast, maggot?”

“ _We_ are making pancakes, once you find me a recipe.”

“Actually, we’re making waffles.” Ronan reached for a box patterned with roosters and kitchen spoons. 

“Why’d you even ask, then?” Blue huffed.

“I was giving you a chance to prove you had your breakfast priorities in order.”

“What’s wrong with pancakes?” 

“Waffles are vastly superior. They have a place for the syrup to go.” 

She couldn’t entirely fault that logic. Blue followed him back over to the counter, leaning on it while he thumbed through the recipe cards. Despite the bickering that had immediately ensued upon her arrival, she really couldn’t help but be glad Ronan was the first one up. That might have been selfish, but that urge to just be friends with him, independently of Adam and Gansey, still gnawed at her. She liked that he had the stones to fight back, liked that all the mud-slinging didn’t change the fact that they’d do a lot for one another. Blue couldn’t forget the look on his face when he’d handed her the only light he had, that he’d wept just as openly about Gansey as she had. Her fists clenched in the pockets of the faded Aglionby crew hoodie she wore, and she drank in this feel of him in his element. An undercurrent of quiet beneath the sharp chaos of his stare. 

“Don’t just stand there, Sargent.” Ronan intentionally hip-checked her on his way to the ingredients. “Get the eggs and milk outta the fridge.” 

And just like that, Blue was back in the moment, doing as asked, then delivering a matching jab into his ribs that made him stagger with a startled laugh. Chainsaw echoed the sound from where she had perched near the flower vase. With an amazing lack of casualties, they followed the recipe, Aurora’s beautiful handwriting guiding them in faded blue ink. To Blue’s delight, the waffle-maker was also a dream thing, evidenced by the imperfect triangle shape of the grid, the squares uneven, and the fact that no matter how distracted they got by mixing more batter or setting the table, they never burned. 

“Dude, you have fresh boysenberry syrup?” she asked, bent with her head halfway in the fridge. “Where did you even get that? Is it dreamt?”

“I don’t dream everything that’s weird to you,” Ronan snapped. “I got it from the fuckin’ farmer’s market.” 

Blue already had a jar of raspberry syrup and blueberry syrup in the crook of her arm. “I sure hope you don’t. Dreaming everything that’s weird for you is bad enough.” 

She straightened and kicked the door shut. On the stove, Ronan was heating up the maple syrup, and the smell of that with the cooking waffles made her mouth water. 

“Surely, I must be hallucinating,” Gansey’s voice said sleepily. “Jane and Lynch in the kitchen with naught a drop of blood spilled?”

Ronan snorted. “You don’t know what’s in the food, shut up.” He’d taken one look at Gansey and immediately turned back to the sausages he was arranging in the cast iron skillet. Blue couldn’t put her finger on what had shifted with Gansey’s arrival, but she hadn’t spent two years around these boys without knowing when the shift happened. She couldn’t help thinking that a great many of their problems could have been solved by sitting the hell down and saying something, but they were all bull-headed. 

And, as if that thought had been a cue, Adam joined them. The dark circles under his eyes were normal, but there was true unrest pulling at his angular features. Blue’d woken up a couple of times in the middle of the night to catch him tossing and turning. She couldn’t imagine what all this meant for him, what could possibly be going through his head, but she wished he didn’t work so hard at being the most stubborn one of them all. 

“Of course, you assholes would show up after all the hard work is done,” Ronan complained, but he jerked his head toward the table, indicating he wouldn’t let them help now even if they wanted to. “Sit your asses down and start eating before it all gets cold.”

Gansey and Adam shook their heads at one another, taking their seats and reaching for the already overflowing plate of waffles. Blue went to retrieve the clean mugs from the dish drainer and paused to take it all in. The stove sizzling, the room full of breakfast smells, two of her boys at the table, shoulder to shoulder over food she’d helped make, and a third at the stove pretending this all didn’t matter. Her eyes closed, burning the negative after-image on the backs of her eyelids, committing it all to memory. If she could rewrite this day, they wouldn’t be going to a wake later. Maybe they’d go down to the lake, or see the sleeping cows. Maybe Gansey and Ronan would drive their cars out in the field, she and Adam in the passenger seats, hanging out the windows in spite of the cold. Literally, they could do anything but what needed to be done, and they could be happy. Maybe these idiots could come in with reddened cheeks and wild eyes and be able to say things they couldn’t say now. 

If Blue could rewrite this day, and all their days after, she’d find a way to do it with all the synonyms for peace.


	6. Si Vis Amari, Ama

_If you wish to be loved, love_

“ **A** re you planning to do something about this, Lynch?” 

Gansey took Ronan’s chin in his hand, running his thumb along the stubble gathered at his jaw. The gesture brought a fond smile to his face in spite of the admonishing tone. Many an argument had been had about Ronan’s ability to grow facial hair overnight while Gansey looked for even the faintest bit of upper lip fuzz just for the excuse to shave it away. Flittering behind a simple desire for the best appearance this afternoon was the curiosity of how it would feel to brush his cheek along Ronan’s. He settled for the practical approach, knowing this was no time for a fanciful one. 

“Do I need to do something about it?” Ronan grumbled, his eyes narrowing at Gansey, though he didn’t pull away. 

He had his dress slacks on, undershirt tucked into them and cross hanging from a simple golden chain resting between his collarbones. Gansey stubbornly met Ronan’s eyes rather than letting his own wander.

“Don’t you think you ought to?”

“I don’t owe that fucker anything,” Ronan said of Robert Parrish.

While Gansey appreciated the sentiment, and actually agreed with it, he shook his head. “True, but you’re not doing any of this for him. You’re doing it for Adam, aren’t you?”

“I think he’s got a lot more on his mind than my five o’clock shadow.”

“Looks more like a midnight one to me,” Gansey teased, but he wasn’t backing down. “We are his front lines here, Ronan. We should present ourselves in our best forms today.” 

Ronan took a breath to respond, but Gansey moved his fingers to his lips to quiet him before he could retort. He didn’t have to say ‘please’; it became clear the message had gotten through, because Ronan’s shoulders sagged, and he sighed dramatically against Gansey’s hand. He nodded once. 

“There’s my dreamer,” Gansey praised, leaning up on his toes to touch his forehead to Ronan’s before pulling back. “If you’d gather the instruments, please? I’ll join you in a moment.”

Rolling his eyes and muttering something derogatory about instruments, Ronan disappeared into the bathroom. Gansey, who’d started to put on his dress shirt, slipped back out of it so he wouldn’t risk getting anything on it. He hadn’t packed a spare. Listening to Ronan move about in the bathroom, running water and metal clinking against porcelain got Gansey’s heart racing a little bit. It swiftly brought home that he hadn’t been in close quarters with Ronan since before the road trip with Henry and Blue. He never let himself forget that he missed it fiercely, but the inevitability of it now had him aching down to his bones. His fingers itched with the phantom sensation of touching Ronan, of being as close to him as he’d been with Adam, and there was no denying it drew him in like gravity. 

He stepped into the bathroom to find Ronan waiting, seated on the closed lid of the toilet, looking like a toddler about to be grounded. It made Gansey laugh and rub the top of his head as if he were ruffling the curls that had once been there. 

“Chin up, Lynch. This isn’t the end of the world.” 

“Could be the end of my life if you fuck up with the razor.”

“Please, Ronan, I’ve told you a thousand times over that I despise leaving a sacred place in worse condition than when I found it.”

Then his eyes drifted over to the counter, where a bowl of shaving cream had been whisked and an old-fashioned razor sat next. The sink was full, clean water steaming slightly. Gansey forced himself to take a deep breath through his nose, letting it out slowly through his mouth. Ronan was watching him. 

“Fortunately, this was how I was taught. My family is ever full of peculiar airs and strange tastes.” He couldn’t let the silence linger in the air too long; instead filling it with warmth…and definite relief that he knew how to do this. It would have been awfully embarrassing to suggest this whole thing, only to be presented with treasure and ask for a common plastic razor instead. Sure, it was what he used nowadays for the sake of convenience, but once taught, Gansey never forgot a ritual. 

There was no doubt in his mind this was about to be a ritual.

So, he began, with an unspoken request to the universe to keep his hand steady, and turned his attention to the task. All of his focus was on Ronan, and it felt like even the air kept still for them. He could barely hear either one of them breathing. Ronan closed his eyes, which handed over all of his available trust to Gansey. For someone who had endured the things Ronan had, it could hardly be taken lightly. He lathered the pale skin and leaned in to make careful passes with the blade. Gansey’s heart raced, and sometimes, he used his other hand to tilt Ronan’s face just so he could feel the matching pulse beneath his fingertips as he did. He also took shameless advantage of Ronan’s need to keep his mouth shut, lest he get nicked. 

“This is the best place he could be right now, you know,” Gansey told Ronan while he worked, his voice quiet in the intimate space. “There’s nowhere he belongs more when he needs to feel safe. You’ve always been able to give him that.”

_Shut the fuck up_ , Gansey imagined him saying, thought for certain he’d know the look in Ronan’s eyes if he dared to open them. 

Ronan kept still.

“It’s been the opposite for me. I want to be anything but safe with you. Well, except the present moment, of course.” He laughed near Ronan’s clean-shaven cheek, rinsing the razor in the water before starting in again. 

Ronan clenched his hands into fists on the towel draped over his lap, his brows knotting together, the only indications Gansey’s words meant anything to him. They were practically a shout Gansey had effectively quieted with just his gentle, careful hands. 

“Perhaps, when all this has passed, something new will begin, an even better life for Adam. I hope so, anyway.”

It was the best he could do, this open promise of better things to come, an offer and an affirmation all in one. Gansey finished, pulling back to swirl the razor through the water one last time. He carefully tugged at the towel still tangled in Ronan’s grip, drying the blade before setting it down. Ronan eased his hold just enough to let Gansey pat at his face, wiping away any residue. He couldn’t help caressing along the sharp line of his jaw, appreciating how smooth it was to the touch. He swelled with pride at a job well done. Ronan finally opened his eyes, fixing on Gansey so intently he felt pinned. It wasn’t unpleasant, and he hoped Lynch was satisfied with what he saw. 

“Fuck, you don’t ever shut up, do you?” he snapped, yanking the towel out of Gansey’s hands completely.

The laugh bubbling up from Gansey’s throat was all the answer he’d get. 

/

Blue knocked on the door frame to the family room to announce her arrival. “Bathroom’s free now.”

“I’m good,” Adam replied. 

While she’d been gone, and with Gansey upstairs with Ronan, he’d used the space to get changed just to keep from being idle too long. He turned to face Blue and paused to process what he was seeing. They’d known each other for over two years now, and he’d never seen her formally dressed. At least, not in something she didn’t make herself in whatever might constitute formal to her. Today, it wasn’t a handmade dress with glimpses of skin where there maybe shouldn’t have been, nor a simple storebought number meant to help her blend in to the parts of Henrietta that would be at this service. Instead, she wore a Chinese style tunic that fit her too well to be anything but made for her, and matching silk pants, all in black. An incredible embroidery had been stitched across the front of it, a sprawling winged lion in silver and gold thread. The lion’s teeth were bared, a seemingly natural accompaniment to the horns on its brow. Nothing about it was subtle, and yet it was still elegant. It complemented her skin and her fierce eyes. The only way Adam thought it could have been more perfectly suited for her was if Ronan had dreamt it. 

“It’s called _Bixie_ ,” Blue told him when she noticed how he studied her. She had matching silver and gold hair pins in her hand, and she was working to place them in her unruly hair. He liked the way her lips shaped the foreign word. 

Adam reached out to touch some of the clips that had already been placed, reminded of how soft her wild hair was, familiarity digging down into him to keep him steady. He pulled back almost immediately after, as if touching her were as forbidden as it once was, instead reaching for his tie. 

Blue rolled her eyes, affirming that his concern was unnecessary. “We’re fine, okay?” 

“What does it mean? That word I’m not even gonna try to repeat.”

“It keeps evil at bay,” she answered, no rhyme or reason to the places she put the remaining clips. “Henry thought a phoenix might be more appropriate, but I told him some things were better left as ashes.” 

Adam closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Nothing sounded more true to him in this moment than that statement. Once, he’d sought comfort in being the most unknown of the group, but time and again, his friends proved to him how comforting it could be that they knew him sometimes better than he knew himself. Letting go of that stubborn distance had been hard for him. Daily survival had come to hinge itself on quiet and distance before he knew them. Old habits, particularly the ones that spared him bruises, were indeed very hard to break for Adam Parrish.

Blue took the tie from his idle hands, and her touch brought him back to the present. It startled him to find her so close to him when he opened his eyes. She leaned up on her toes to wrap the tie around his collar, tucking it neatly before starting to work on the knot. Adam had no idea what to do with his hands, so he let them fall to his sides. Being this close to Blue caused him to really feel both his exhaustion and the strangely charged feel of being this close to the ley line. In her eyes, he saw his own determination. A mirror. 

Were they really fine? There was this gnawing feeling in Adam, the one that crept up on two people in the room, reminding them that one of them is the significant other and the other is the ex. He thought he had the right to feel smug, since he had been that person over a year ago, but in the end, he cared too much. It didn’t seem as if it bothered Blue one bit to not only know Adam and Gansey were together, but see it in person. When she said they were fine, he wanted to believe it. Befriending her and Gansey and Ronan had overthrown all the things he’d grown up thinking about relationships. He knew not all of them were like his parents, but what he knew beyond that came from cookie-cutter scenarios other people had. Loving any of them fell so far out of his scope, he didn’t know what to use as his compass to navigate them.

“Look,” he said, reaching up to cover her hands with his. It felt good to touch her again; it always had. “I’m not gonna say this right, so I’m just gonna say it. Elaborate on ‘fine’ so I know what kind of lines I’m walking.”

Blue sighed, but her features softened. She wasn’t angry about his hands on hers nor what he was asking of her. It reminded him of the way she’d carefully held him in the kitchen, like she understood how close was safe, and how he needed to be aware of the boundaries. 

“The only one who’s good at talking is Gansey, and sometimes, you just want him to shut up so you can think straight.”

Adam laughed in spite of himself because it was true. Gansey coped with his issues completely opposite of Adam. He spoke to be heard because the silence felt like a tightening noose, and Adam associated every sound with a cinch in the rope. Blue looked up at him like she was soaking up the break in tension. 

“The lines are where you want to put them, Adam,” she added. “I still love Gansey, if that’s what you’re asking. That isn’t going to change. But I love Henry. And you, and Ronan. That’s just how it is.”

“That can’t be _all_ , Blue. The curse said ‘true love’, didn’t it? If it hadn’t been true, would you have actually…” He stopped himself before he could say it. Saying it out loud felt like inviting a demon back to finish the job for a third time. “Would it have happened the way it did?”

Blue sighed, as if this weren’t the first time she’d had to think about this or talk about it. “After graduation, before we went on the road trip, I talked to my mom about the whole ‘true love’ thing. Even with everything that happened, it felt absolutely ridiculous to think the feelings I had were chiseled down to one dumb boy when it felt like I loved four of them. She said that words like ‘true love’ and ‘soulmate’ were meant to convey a connection to people you were meant to share the most important parts of you with, conjoined threads. Like the ley line connecting magical things to one another. A lot of the more prudish beliefs of finding the one and monogamous relationships twisted all those names until a person had to feel like they were only meant to be with one person instead of all the others that shared a piece of them.” Blue paused, pursing her lips. “Then Calla asked if that was her way of condoning a Raven Boy orgy, and that’s about where the conversation came to a screeching halt.” 

The best thing about that, was Adam believing wholeheartedly in every bit of it. Both what Maura Sargent had been trying to say, and the nature of life at 300 Fox Way turning it into mockery. No matter which way he opted to look at it, both sounded better than Blue limiting herself to the prophecy of only loving one when she’d made room in her heart for all of them. It took a weight off his shoulders, and she must have seen something betrayed in his features because she smiled up at him. 

Despite the weight of his palms on the backs of her hands, she finished the knot and gently pressed it in place. Twisting her wrists, she took hold of him and put his hands on her hips. Adam’s heart stuttered in his chest. It felt like freedom and release, as if he’d been waiting for this moment when it was okay for them to love someone else as well as each other. They were feelings that had never gotten the right words assigned to thiem. But the feel of her pressing up against his body, the way she held him without hesitation, those things truly convinced him they were fine. More than fine. 

“I never had any doubt in my mind you all loved each other, and that’s okay, too.”

Adam closed his eyes again, able to breathe a little bit easier now. “Thanks, Blue.” 

She nodded against his chest, and they held each other like that until they heard Ronan and Gansey coming down the stairs.


	7. Veni, Vidi, Vici

**N** iall Lynch had been cremated. Another command decision Declan had made, in the interest of keeping it simple. As simple as a murdered father, a comatose mother and three orphaned sons could be. There had been no wake to speak of, no close knit family members coming to pay respects. Ronan couldn’t recall ever being to a wake in his life, unless he’d been too young to remember it. The idea of milling about for a handful of hours around an open casket, making small talk, did not sound like time well spent. It wouldn’t have been for the Lynches, and it certainly didn’t seem so for the Parrishes.

Walking into the funeral home without attracting attention was impossible. Even without the inexplicable undercurrent of _other_ that clung to them all like eccentric perfume, they looked different than anyone else there. From Blue’s shiny black cheongsam to the three-man vanguard of tailored suits he, Adam and Gansey made, they were doomed to wear invisible target signs for the rest of their time at the wake. Had this been one of Gansey’s own family things or some different kind of unfamiliar territory, Ronan had no doubt he would have surged forth, a noble knight in a room of sharks. But he stood down, chancing a sidelong glance at Adam, giving him the lead. Adam’s expression was notable in that one couldn’t be discerned from his features. It was sophomore year all over again, for all the walls he had up. 

He scanned the room until he found his mother, sitting in the front row of chairs facing the casket. She posed dutifully shaking hands and accepting polite hugs from the observers. An elderly lady sat next to her, patting her thigh occasionally between condolences. It didn’t escape Ronan’s notice that Mrs. Parrish’s sleeve didn’t quite cover healing bruises on her wrist. That was Robert Parrish for you, a shining example of how not to be a human being til the very end.

He blinked away the tinge of red around his vision, and when he focused on Mrs. Parrish again, Adam was making his way to her. The elderly lady rose to hug him almost immediately when he was in range. His frozen features slipped ever so slightly, and he had to stoop to return the awkward embrace.

“Come on,” Gansey urged quietly, and they moved at once, to protect Adam’s back.

Ronan felt a strange sense of disconnect watching Adam take calculated steps up to the casket. His hands stayed at his sides, but his gait suggested practiced reflex, ready to dodge or defend. In a logical world, there was no reason to carry that residual fear with him now, but Adam’s world was often no more logical than Ronan’s. Ronan sent a vow to God that if Robert Parrish came up out of that casket swinging for Adam, Ronan would swing back until he was really dead. He let that hatred tangle up with his insides, vines wrapping around a smaller Ronan he’d tried to leave in the past. 

That younger dreamer was also angry, but fear steadily eclipsed any other memories. The Ronan-of-then reminded the Ronan-of-now what a funeral home smelled like. Death and abandonment and unsure steps into a future without parents. Ronan never got to walk up to a casket and see what was inside; there hadn’t been enough left to show. Even though the one he was looking at here stood open for mourners to view, Ronan couldn’t fathom why Adam would, and all he could do was stand guard, silencing everything he felt.

A monster didn’t reach out for Adam when he approached. Still, it looked to Ronan like Adam had been assaulted. His fingers twitched against the hem of his suit jacket, and he drew up his shoulders, recoiling without backing away. His features closed off, and Ronan clenched his fists because Adam could not. He was starting to contemplate how long was too long for Adam to be that close to his father’s body when he noticed a man closing in on Adam with the swagger of someone about to cause a _problem_. Ronan studied him, piecing together times when he’d dropped Adam off and seen this guy standing under the shade of the carport’s tin roof. Beers in hand, he and Robert were usually laughing at something until Adam walked up to the trailer. Both of them had looked at Ronan’s car, and Gansey’s too, like detestable things, judging everything about them and undoubtedly assigning them as the reasons Adam came to school black and blue the next day. Ronan’s nails bit into his palms.

Gansey must have realized what was about to happen too, because he stepped toward Adam and the other man with intent. Ronan reached out to stop him, feeling a weird bite in his bones at being the one to hold someone else back. If he’d promised to stand down for Adam, he couldn’t be the only one. He’d just barely caught Gansey’s arm before Gansey turned on him, fire in his eyes. He tugged himself free of Ronan’s grip, continuing on his path. Blue shot back an apologetic look but followed, so Ronan had no choice but go with them. He, of all people, knew how a fight felt just before it started, like the ticking of an engine before it turned over into a roar.

“Got some nerve, huh? Showing up like this in your suit with your gang of rich little shits. You shoulda—“

“Is there a problem, sir?” Gansey asked, and it was the first time in months anyone had heard ‘old Virginia money’ come out of his mouth. Clipped and cold, drawing a line in the sand.

The man looked over, furious. He looked just like Adam’s old man right before the first swing. Ronan remembered that face, flushed and wild, unpredictable. If he took a swing at Gansey, or Adam for that matter, it was all over. But Blue quickly grabbed for both their hands, linking them and Ronan didn’t even think twice putting his hand on her shoulder. Mrs. Parrish stood up out of her seat, eyes wide. Of course she knew what this was like, and everything about her wet eyes screamed _not here!_

A surge went through Ronan, like Cabeswater, like scrying, like _dreaming_. Their power. And seconds later, Gansey smiled with teeth.

“Show. Respect.”

Quiet came over the funeral parlor. Gansey hadn’t raised his voice in the slightest but it commanded attention. All the bluster went out of the man and while he still wore his contemptuous glare, all the wind was out of his sails. He gave a curt nod and went to rejoin a handful of men so much like him, they all could have been interchangeable.

Blue slowly unclasped her hands from the other two boys, and Ronan watched as Gansey put his hand at the small of Adam’s back. Adam slowly let out a breath he’d been holding. With the situation diffused, his mother didn’t seem to know what to do with herself, pausing where she stood. Ronan couldn’t look at her straight on; there was too much hostility in him, too much invested in the betterment of Adam to be conducive to whatever she might have been feeling right then. The elderly woman she’d been with moved up beside her and gently urged her forward with a knobby hand between her shoulders. 

Squaring up, Mrs. Parrish closed the distance between herself and Adam, taking the same hand Blue had held only a moment ago. Under the watchful eyes of all his friends, she pulled him away from the casket, away from the monster, asking without words for him to sit next to her. Gansey nodded to Blue and Ronan, then moved to sit down next to Adam. Ronan’s body wasn’t big enough for everything clawing to get out, and soon, he was the only one standing next to the casket. He finally looked down, and it wasn’t respect he paid. He owed Robert Parrish nothing, less than nothing.

“Burn in hell,” Ronan whispered.

/

The older woman was Adam’s grandmother, a genuine Florida retiree whose accent was thicker than Adam’s and his mother’s combined. She and Adam talked while Gansey, Blue and Ronan followed Mrs. Parrish from a safe distance to the room where refreshments were served. Ronan had mixed feelings about her place in all of this, and was entirely convinced that a majority of people who’d shown up here were on Robert’s side of the invisible line he’d drawn against his own family. Certainly, their wives and some of the younger children had come along, but was it out of fear? Was Adam’s entire neighborhood composed of dads who beat their kids and mothers who didn’t do anything about it? 

Ronan turned down food but took a glass of punch from Blue without drinking it. Gansey filled a plate for Adam, and it didn’t escape Ronan’s notice that even he couldn’t figure out what to say to Mrs. Parrish, so he said nothing. She treated him much the same, little more than a nod of acknowledgment that he was here for her son. Adam’s friends would always fill those shoes since it seemed no one else ever had. 

Gansey walked the plate of food out to Adam, moving with the familiarity of one who’d been in social circles long enough to respect a private conversation. Adam introduced them, everything about him still on lockdown beyond what he needed to be a presentable human for the family. Ronan hated the absolute lie of it all. Gansey wasn’t much better, shifting the plate into his left hand so he could greet Adam’s grandma with a pleasant handshake. Immediately after, he stood shoulder to shoulder with Adam, Gansey’s way of being with him, without screaming to the pit of vipers here that he was _with_ him. The only thing stopping Ronan from either stalking over to stand on Adam’s other side or punching a wall was that the old lady remained the most real of all three of them. She smiled with a sad warmth that said she would have rather met Adam’s friends under better circumstances. If you asked Ronan, these were the best circumstances, now that Adam wouldn’t have to live with this hanging over him anymore.

An elbow to his ribs jarred him out of his thoughts before they could get even more grim. It took a small miracle of maneuvering to keep from spilling his punch all over his suit. He glared down at Blue.

“What the fuck, Sargent?”

“Nothing, loser.” She chugged her punch, knocking the last of it back like a shot.

Ronan wished it were spiked, for a multitude of reasons. Instead, he kept holding his cup, not drinking, just watching.

“This is how it goes in the movies,” Blue commented.

He didn’t like where the conversation was headed already, so he didn’t reply. It was a slim chance she would take the hint to elaborate, and he didn’t believe in his odds. When minutes of him watching Gansey and Adam stretched on without her saying another word, it didn’t feel as much like a relief as he thought it would. She left Ronan with that cryptic sentence and nothing to tie it to. Finally, he couldn’t take it any longer; he turned to demand an explanation, but Blue had already wandered away.


	8. Post Tenebras Lux

_After darkness, I hope for light_

**N** o one spoke on the way back to the Barns. Gansey pulled the Camaro up next to Ronan's car and parked. They all filed out in motions that were merely reflex, old muscle memory of falling out of the car after a long day of searching for Glendower clues and exploring magical forests. Only today, the quiet was too deep, the unsettling mood of the funeral home and the people who had been in it weighing on all of them. Understandably, no one more than Adam, who looked as if he carried the weight of his father’s death on his shoulders; in reality, he owned none of it. He lingered behind them while they filed up to the porch, his gaze lingering back over the driveway, the road they’d pulled in from. All of them noticed; Blue elbowed Gansey in the ribs, and he threw a helpless look at Ronan. Cussing under his breath, Ronan broke away from them to head back to Adam, taking him gently by the wrist. Out of his pocket, he withdrew his keys using his other hand, pressing them into Adam’s palm.

“Don’t wrap it around a fucking tree, okay?”

“That’s rich coming from you.” But Adam sounded relieved, grateful. It was the most alive he’d sounded since they left that morning.

Gansey, Ronan, and Blue watched him make his way to the BMW, cautious. He opened the door, but didn’t get in right away. His face looked exactly as it had, standing over Robert Parrish’s casket. So devoid of emotion, they knew he was dealing with too much. They were all ready and willing if he didn’t want to be alone, but then he slid into the driver’s seat and shut the door. They let him do it. Blue held their hands while the engine roared to life, dream beast of a car prowling back and out to the road.

“How long?” Ronan asked when they could no longer see the taillights.

“An hour?” Gansey suggested.

Blue smiled sadly and finally released Ronan’s hand to pull a chain from underneath the collar of her blouse. From it dangled a familiar little bee. “Don’t worry, he won’t be alone.” She kissed the little thing, ignoring the way Ronan rolled his eyes, and offered it up to the sky.

RoboBee buzzed off after the BMW, and they watched until they couldn’t see that anymore either.

/

Adam drove without really thinking about where he was headed. The car swelled and vibrated with the bass from one of Ronan’s old CDs. Adam only barely registered the familiarity of songs that used to play when Ronan dropped him off after work. Only half-comforting, it dragged him deeper into his own head, which was exactly where he didn’t want to be. Buried underneath a staggering amount of Harvard scheduling and assignments was the smell of Henrietta dirt, the way the sunset looked behind his trailer and always the shadow of his father in the places Adam needed to exist. Looking down into the coffin, seeing concrete evidence that all of this could truly be over should have offered him something that felt like closure. And maybe in a few days, once the same Henrietta dirt truly buried bruised fists and bloodshot eyes and every last uncaring part of his dad, Adam might feel the pressure come off his chest.

He felt wild, unhinged, completely un-Adam-like, and it kept his knuckles ghost-white on the steering wheel. The idea of not being Adam Parrish felt so appealing, he tried to believe he was Ronan. Trembling with the music, screaming wordlessly with his speed and wishing for all the world he could untether himself from everything he didn’t want to feel. He’d managed to stay composed, looking down into a wooden box, lined with cheap satin. When Adam saw his dad’s face, it was like looking at his own. They shared enough features that it had shaken Adam to the core. He didn’t always think about how closely they resembled one another because he was often looking away, always holding his hands up.

But it could have been him. How many times had Gansey murmured fearfully that Adam’s dad could kill him? How many times had Adam deflected the fight, but knew it to be true? Standing up there, it was all too easy to feel time and reality distort around him, putting him in the casket. His face in the cheap satin, his friends heartbroken and actually meaning it.

A car honked at him as he moved into another lane much faster than he meant to. Something was pulling him, he had to get to safety, outrun a haunting of his own design.

Even more alarming was the idea that five or ten years from now, he could be looking into a mirror and see _that face_ looking back at him. Crows feet around his eyes, dark circles under them. Would he be even angrier? Would he still have his self-control? Would he hit things when they didn’t do what he wanted them to, couldn’t be whatever the hell he wanted them to be? Sure, he could love now, but would hate be something he grew into? Was his fall inevitable? He had to believe it wouldn’t be, not with Gansey and Ronan and Blue in his life, the friends he was making at college, the surrogate family he had back in Singer’s Falls. That was a future no one had told him and he was too afraid to ask. Better to do everything he could build a life so completely opposite of the one he’d had growing up. He half-wished his mother had never called him, wished he could have found out after all this was over, so he never had to look at his dad’s face again and honest to God see _himself_.

Adam jerked the BMW onto the next exit, heard the tires squeal only slightly but immediately comply with grace. One of the many overlooks this part of Virginia was known for, he half-glided and half-jerked himself into a space. The universe granted him the small favor of being the only one there for the time being, not that he probably could have brought himself to care, but it helped. He wrenched the gearshift into park and pushed his hands into his hair.

Adam screamed.

The music roaring inside the idling BMW clawed into the sound and dragged it away, so he did it again. And again. He forgot himself, then, twisted his fingers around his hair until his scalp hurt, before releasing himself to pound on the steering wheel. It wasn’t his car, technically not his safe space, but the BMW smelled like Ronan’s aftershave and leather and he just couldn’t hold back anymore. He let his head fall back while he caught his breath. He tugged at the knot to his tie, getting the thing undone and tossing it into the seat next to him. Adam sat shaking in the driver’s seat until the sun dropped below the horizon, and the car’s automatic lights lit up the dashboard in a green glow. The CD got to the end of its tracks and clicked over to the beginning. Adam finally shut off the car.

He tumbled out into the yawning twilight and took a deep breath of the trees around him, the faint taste of fresh water nearby. His skull pounded; he wished he could break it open and let anything that resembled thinking, along with all his demons, out into the world where he didn’t have to listen to it anymore. Dragging himself over to the railing surrounding the overlook, he dropped his arms heavily on it and closed his eyes, seeking solace in the ley line. He was close to it now, closer than he’d been at the Barns, and it wouldn’t have surprised him if it had pulled him here intentionally. He didn’t know exactly where he was, but that feeling of safety didn’t leave him just because he’d gotten out of the BMW. He grasped onto it with all his senses, trying to wrap it around him like a blanket, listened to the whisper of the leaves as they rustled on the evening wind. That sense of slipping down down down crept up on him and he let it, sinking into its pulse and its flow beneath the ground. His breathing evened out, he could no longer feel the chilly bite of impending winter. It was everything.

Once he’d grasped the ley line, it was all instinct from there, latching on sensory touches, feather-light at first. The scent of mint, the feel of the trees, the smoky incense of dreams walking wide awake. They were close to him now, making their way nearer and nearer to him until he could feel the beating of two more hearts right beside his own. He would have called to them, but he had no more voice; he’d left it all over the inside of the car. So he sank into them, letting their presence carry him. Adam was weightless, having shed the trap of physical form and the burden of things that weren’t his fault. He wasn’t alone.

Grateful, he fell into darkness.

/

“Does this happen a lot?”

Gansey looked up from where he’d been watching Adam’s slack features against his leg. Ronan clenched and unclenched the steering wheel, visible from Gansey’s place in the back passenger side. His smile was both rueful and unapologetic. Gansey was learning to stop being sorry for who he was, both around his friends and away from them.

“It’s a little different.” He paused, considering this. “Well, I suppose no two instances are the same. But consider it a bit like dreaming, Lynch. You sleep every night like normal — as close to that as any of us get, anyhow — and sometimes you dream, sometimes you _dream_.

“So sometimes, you drink your coffee like a normal asshole, and sometimes you just drop your soul in it and hope you don’t drown?”

Gansey couldn’t help but laugh. “Did he scry over his morning coffee again?”

“Again,” Ronan hissed.

“Ronan.” Gansey softened his voice, the tension rolling off Ronan enough to smother them all if he let it. As it was, he resisted rolling down the back window and instead busied his fingers with the wild strands of Adam’s hair. “We’ve come too far to change these things about ourselves now, and we wouldn’t be who we are without them. Sometimes, when this normal life is too heavy, it’s nice to remember the magic. It keeps us grounded. It is, as with our love for you, an inevitability that will continue down the ley line long past the time we’ve stopped walking this earth.”

Gansey watched as Ronan’s head tipped up, and his eyes fixed on Gansey in the reflection of the rearview mirror. His brows knotted into place, and Gansey didn’t need to see the rest of his face to know he was frowning. A few feet away, he felt Ronan burning, and it was immediate and perfect along his senses, as it had always been. He wondered if Adam had felt them before they arrived to find him lost in himself. Gansey had known the tug of Adam’s presence like fingers plucked over a string taut between them. It was something he loved about living again, bound to Ronan and Adam as he was. That connection was the reason Gansey’s mind would never stop retreating to the forest of his heart when things got quiet or Adam would never stop reaching for magic at the bottom of his coffee mug.

_Inevitability_.

“Fuck,” Ronan inelegantly broke the silence.

“Yeah,” Adam spoke up, muzzy, from Gansey’s lap. “It’s like that.”

Ronan clenched the steering wheel again, his gaze jerked away from the mirror so Gansey couldn’t see any part of his expression anymore. A fond smile lingered on Gansey’s face regardless, and he ran his fingertips along Adam’s cheek, the slant of his nose, offering him something stable to cling to in case he was having trouble coming back to himself. “Welcome back, Parrish. We missed you.”

“How did you find me?” Adam’s voice sounded distant still, but at least the thought came out coherently enough.

“Well, even if you hadn’t called to us along the ley line, we had a little help.” Gansey nodded toward Ronan in the front seat, and sure enough, sitting on his shoulder like a tiny version of Chainsaw, was RoboBee.

The way Adam laughed hoarsely, an accurate summary of all their combined absurdity. “Thanks. And as y’can see, the Beemer’s safe and sound.”

“Count me only half-reassured,” Ronan grumbled back, but the tension had unwound noticeably from his shoulders. He turned the car on. “We’re going home.”

“Yeah,” Adam agreed. “That’s exactly where I wanna be.”


	9. Temet Nosce

_Know thyself_

**T** hank God it’s over.

Adam sensed more than he saw the people dispersing around him. The more space cleared around him, the more his shoulders felt lighter. Before long, only his friends remained. They could have gone to the car, but they were waiting for him. His gaze lingered on the fresh soil and newly placed headstone. 

ROBERT PARRISH

HUSBAND, FATHER, FRIEND

Carefully, Adam started to wrap his mind around the reality of a world without this man in it. The first thing he allowed himself to think was that he had been none of those things. Perhaps legally or in the eyes of people who didn’t live under the same roof, he had a sliver of chance to be those things. But once everyone was inside and the doors were locked, other words came quicker to mind to describe what he was to Adam and his mom, none of them good. Adam wondered how many other headstones in this cemetery were lies and concluded it was better not to know. Places like these were bad enough to be in. Six feet under didn’t feel deep enough for people like his dad, but it would have to do. _Thank God it’s over_ , he thought again, and it applied not only to this fake tribute, but to the chapters of his life he’d lived in fear that he would never get away from this at all. 

“Where are you going?” Gansey called after him. 

Adam blinked, finding himself several strides away from them. He had to look over his shoulder to see them, the group still standing at the grave, hesitating. Since he hadn’t really had a destination in mind, he shrugged in answer to the question.

“Do you need to be alone?” Blue asked.

“No.” Of that much, Adam was sure. He didn’t want to be without them, not when he felt so light he could drift away. If he got caught in a fickle wind, he might be carried somewhere he didn’t know how to get back from. 

Before he knew it, Blue’s smaller hand had pushed it’s way into his, Gansey and Ronan on his other side. It wasn’t as if he could forget that they’d faced the end of the world together and came back from it, but when would he ever stop thinking he’d end up alone? 

“You know,” Gansey broke the thick quiet among them jovially, “A daytime traipse through a graveyard seems much more Lynch’s aesthetic, don’t you agree, Jane?”

“Nah, that’s too cool for Ronan, and he knows it.” 

“You’re such a little shit, Sargent.”

“Takes one to know one, doesn’t it?”

Onward they walked, winding aimlessly between towering hunks of stone shaped like belief systems Adam didn’t understand and markers sunken deep enough into the ground they nearly stepped on them. With Gansey, Blue, and Ronan, he felt safe enough to trust more than just his eyes as they pressed onward. Underneath his physical senses was that of the ley line, and it moved like a current _shu-shushing_ him in gentle pushes to weave among the trees. Much like the feel he’d gotten from St. Agnes, there was no doubt something sacred slept here with the caskets. A sense of peace. Human hearts saw this as a place of rest, and thus a place of rest it was. Adam paused, and just off to his left, Gansey had been the one to split off from them. 

This headstone was newer than the others, but still looked a little weathered. Flowers grew around the base, the grass cut just so, as if someone couldn’t bear to remove them or the the memory of the person there. 

“I know this name,” Gansey mused, running his fingers along the engraving. “Noah Czerny. Remember senior year? His sister came to Aglionby and gave a speech about him on Raven Day. Apparently he’d dreamt of ravens in the sky and that’s how that ritual came to be. I was very moved.” Adam didn’t think he’d ever seen Gansey’s face so fond, as if just by touching a name, he’d befriended the ghost of his memory. 

Blue watched them, touching a hand to her face and blinking at it when her fingertips came away wet. It felt right for tears to be shed here. 

“I can’t believe you remember this shit,” Ronan grumbled, but he also crouched down to run a fingertip along the flowers. 

They reminded Adam of the ones that were in Ronan’s kitchen, vibrant and so very alive in a place meant to defy that very word. Forget-me-nots. The presence in Adam’s chest he’d come to acknowledge as Cabeswater, the ley line, his power — like a third lung — swelled up, warmed his skin. Whoever Noah had been, the trees whispered that he was magic. This was where Adam placed his condolences, all the respect he couldn’t have managed for the man that sired him. But he hadn’t come to the cemetery empty handed, so instead he closed his eyes and saw raven feathers behind his closed lids. A midday sun beaming through the beating of wings and joyous shouts. Adam let go of the mantle of fear and let the phantom birds carry it far away from him. 

/

Gansey hoped it wasn’t obvious to his passengers, his instinctive ritual of checking the Parrish property for any signs of Adam’s father. The idea that he didn’t have to was still too fresh and new to have made its way into the parts of his mind that mattered. The familiar old truck loomed next to the carport, the husk of whatever fleeting repair project Robert had taken a shine to sat protected underneath the tin canopy. The truck was a red light to Gansey, a stop sign, indicating he should park at the end of the road and let Adam walk the rest of the way. The threat was gone, the habit alive and kicking. He’d never actually been inside the dusty blue double-wide, only as far as that carport, and never when the truck was parked nearby. On his more sleepless and unkind nights, especially after he’d seen Adam come to school with fresh bruises, Gansey conjured up what the inside might be like. 

It had been quite a long time since he’d had to think about it, Adam’s life in this trailer. For Gansey, if he said it felt like another life, he meant it both literally and figuratively. The Pig crept along the driveway, and as he eased himself into a park right behind the beater in the carport, he chanced a look at Adam’s face. Gansey couldn’t tell anything by his expression. If anything, he seemed as closed off and unreachable as he had at the services. Maybe farther, which twisted Gansey’s stomach. The farther Adam retreated from them, the harder it was to be there for him. Being here brought that same sense of helplessness he’d had back in high school right up to the surface. God, he hoped the fights were finally over. All of them.

For the third time, their mismatched group oozed out of the Camaro and let Adam lead the way. 

In an unexpected flip of reality, Gansey _marveled_ at his surroundings. The sheer surprise of it had him clasping Blue’s shoulder, earning him an inquisitive look he couldn’t readily answer to. The best way he could even begin to think of it was if someone had taken his sprawling family home, with all of it’s precariously placed items arranged for maximum effect and folded it down into an origami shadowbox, tempered by the mismatched wonder of the Barns kitchen. Little was in disrepair, even if it was old or mismatched, the photos and knickknacks arranged just so. Of all the things he thought he might encounter walking in the door, this most certainly hadn’t been it. 

Adam paused at the doorway to the kitchen. None of them had moved from the modest foyer, and in the meantime, Adam had already taken off his shoes and made his way past them. Finally, the featureless shape to his face cracked, and his brows drew together. 

“Christ, someone say something.”

“It’s a lot cleaner than I expected,” Ronan replied without missing a beat. He let out a soft ‘ _oof_ ’ as Blue’s elbow found its way between a couple of ribs. “Fuck off!”

Gansey stood torn between the habit of admonishing Ronan’s tactless observations and outright agreeing with him. Adam had never presented himself in such a way that indicated he’d lived filthy, but somehow the idea had ingrained itself that there was as much Henrietta dirt inside as there was outside. To discover otherwise resulted in a complete cognitive dissonance. Just like seeing the real Barns, it made Gansey want to explore all the differences. Only instead of comparing reality to memory, he’d be comparing the reality to everything Adam never told them and left them to assume. Gansey wasn’t a fool, he knew why they never talked about it, and now didn’t seem like the best time to. 

Adam looked around the living room as if he were seeing it for the first time, then ducked into the kitchen. Looking at each other, the other three followed him. 

“What are all the boxes for?” Blue asked.

She pointed to a stack of flattened boxes leaning against one wall. They were the only things out of place in a room meticulously cleaned with naught a dish in sight, a faded floral tablecloth on a four-seater table that looked barely big enough to seat two. Gansey tried to imagine taking a meal here, having to sit that close to Robert Parrish, and immediately banished the idea before it could sour his features noticeably.

“Mom’s leaving here when the estate is settled,” Adam told her, his fingers idly stroking a divot in the laminate countertop. “She’s gonna move in with my grandma.”

Ronan opened his mouth, then with a stunning amount of forethought, closed it again.

“Good for her,” Gansey said, not insincere.

“Yeah,” Adam agreed. 

It went unsaid among the four of them that it should have happened a long time ago. 

/

The wake was the first time Adam had seen his maternal grandmother since he was a little kid, his age somewhat ambiguous, a blur of times that didn’t seem as bad as the ones that came later. He had no idea about his paternal grandparents, even though there was a picture of them on the same little side table where they had the other ones. Robert Parrish was always more concerned about passing down his terrible temper riding on beer breath than family anecdotes. Probably better that way; Adam didn’t want to think there were other Parrish monsters out there. He was the only one left now, and his beast was more or less under control. If his mom had gone to Florida with him, his life would have been a lot different, maybe even a lot _better_. But he wouldn’t have known Gansey or Ronan or Blue, he might never have known magic existed. Strange to think that the better option actually felt worse after everything he’d been through. 

Adam’s gaze swept around the kitchen one last time before he turned and stepped out of it. Passing the tiny living room, he headed down the hall to his room. The fit was tight, they could only fit single file, the memory of Robert Parrish’s body and presence filling this space making it even more claustrophobic. He was intimately familiar with the cadence of each creak the old floors made. They had been his early warning system, to either pretend to be fast asleep or working very hard. He had to take a couple of deep breaths before he opened the door to his room. There was no way they all would fit, but in the end, it was fierce little Blue who squeezed past them and moved inside with Adam. Ronan and Gansey lingered out in the hall, but Adam knew they were taking everything in. 

Adam had been braced for anything and everything but what he walked into. His room stood exactly the same as the day he’d left for his temporary stay at Monmouth. He’d expected everything to be ransacked or empty, drawers of his modest dresser spilled out or the books torn down from their shelves. His dad threatened everything in Adam’s life — his his body, his possessions, his mental health. Adam had not only dared to walk out on this life, but he’d done it while pressing charges to take Robert Parrish to court. He came to the realization that he’d imagined Robert would hurt all the things that had made up Adam in this trailer in lieu of being able to hurt Adam directly. And here he’d come in to a picture perfect snapshot that threw him so far back into himself he wished it _had_ been destroyed. 

“They kept your seat warm for you,” Ronan growled from the doorway, as offended as Adam was disoriented.

“Ronan,” Gansey murmured, but a thumb pressed hard into his lower lip showed he hadn’t dismissed the idea either. He just hadn’t been sure anyone but Adam should have said it.

So he did. “No, he’s right.” 

Adam’s fists clenched at his sides, because he was worried if he didn’t check himself, he would do all the wrecking for Robert Parrish, and there was no part of him Adam wanted to resurrect. “They thought I’d come back and everything would go right back to the way it was.”

He said ‘they’ because he couldn’t quite decide whether his mom had kept it this way in the hopes that all the pieces of familiarity, their fucked up version of family, would come back together under one roof again. Or if it had been his dad, ready to crow at being right, that Adam would never make it out in the world, but he’d be forgiven and welcome back to everything safe. Oh, wasn’t that some goddamn irony? The next thing to occur to Adam was that he hadn’t expected to ever come back here. He’d said his peace before leaving for Harvard, when the only family he graduated with were the ones standing in this very trailer and the ladies at 300 Fox Way. He blinked, rubbing the bridge of his nose, mentally superimposing the things in this room into his apartment with Gansey back in Cambridge. The books here, they’d comforted him in the middle of the night when everything hurt too much to sleep. Tucked away in various hiding places somehow never discovered by his parents were little trinkets he’d thought would be worth something one day. A dollar store stamp set he’d completely filled in, a box with his spare change in it, a little stuffed mouse he’d picked up after reading The Secret of Nimh from the school library. Would bringing those back with him just keep the cycle of bad memories circling circling circling like sharks waiting for fresh blood to hit the water? 

“You don’t have to do this.” 

Blue broke him out of his own head, sliding her hands around the fist still hanging helplessly at his side. “Nothing says you have to take your past with you into the future. It’s okay to walk away.”

Adam didn’t feel like it was okay, otherwise, what was the point of coming here in the first place if he were going to walk out empty-handed? And yet, the thought of seeking those hiding places, pulling the relics of old comforts and finding a home for them in his current life also didn’t feel right. Even now, he wondered if he would always live in this limbo of past and future self. He closed his eyes and reached out as far as he could. He found the ley line, and with it, closer to him than just the space they occupied, his friends. The people he loved. There was nothing inside the trailer he could bring himself to love as much. His heart had buried them all with his father earlier that day. 

He opened his eyes. They were all touching him, their hands warm and solid, more real than anything he was looking at. 

“I want to walk away,” he told them.

So he did.


	10. Manus Multae Cor Unum

_Many hands, one heart_

“ **W** hat the fuck,” Ronan muttered.

He kicked at the back tire of Declan’s reliable grey Volvo, sitting serenely outside the house. Gansey and Blue looked perplexed, and Adam’s face had that unreachable quality to it, the mask he’d been wearing on and off throughout these last two days. Ronan’s emotions went around like a game show wheel until the little white ticker landed on _pissed off_. No one really knew what to expect when Ronan and Declan were in the same room — particularly Ronan and Declan. His older brother being here signaled emergency or meddling, and since Ronan hadn’t missed any calls or texts, meddling was the base assumption until he was proven wrong. Adam and Blue braved he path to the front door first, leaving Ronan to stew a moment longer, Gansey at his back. He calculated all the ways he wanted to go off on Declan for coming here when he knew what was going on with Adam. He trudged forward, kicking up gravel with his heavy boots. 

“Lynch.”

A firm hand took hold of his arm, just above the elbow, startling but familiar. Ronan turned to look at Gansey, fire in his eyes. He blinked, and warm lips touched his jaw, right by his ear, all the space between them gone. He felt the words as easily as he heard them.

“Don’t fight, not today.” And Gansey wasn’t telling him, he was asking. Another favor, just like with the razor, something for Adam. “Please.”

Gansey loosened his hold as he pulled back, his face gone soft at whatever it was he saw on Ronan’s face. All Ronan could process was paralyzing bewilderment and the warm sensation lingering on his skin from Gansey’s mouth, his breath. Then Gansey let him go and headed into the house as well. Ronan was all alone in his driveway, the wheel spinning again. Had he imagined that? That was a kiss, wasn’t it? How could Gansey just freely go and do something like that? Not just his unerring ability to be soft, so open with his gestures of affection, but a kiss. 

“What the fuck,” he hissed under his breath, touching the spot on his face where _don’t fight_ had been branded into him, and all the fight in him was suddenly pooled between his ribs. He couldn’t really tell if it had worked or he just wanted to punch something even more. 

Squaring his shoulders, he finally headed in after his friends. Pausing in the foyer to take off his shoes, he shouted, “You could have texted, you bastard!”

“Welcome home, you ungrateful shit. You’re just in time to set the table.”

Ronan saw red. Where did Declan get off?! “Set the table for what?” 

He stormed into the kitchen to find Matthew sitting on one end of the counter, wearing his old apron with all the sunflowers on it. It barely fit his bulk anymore, but he always insisted on wearing it if they ever cooked when they came to visit. Declan had his old one on, a dark blue number with Starry Night across the front of it. Food was everywhere, all near the completion stages and his friends were standing off to one side, staring. Someone had put the extra leaf in the table and dragged chairs that didn’t match from other places in the house. Ronan couldn’t remember the last time they’d needed the table to be bigger; they so rarely had guests when he was a kid, and Gansey often just squeezed right in between Ronan and Matthew.

“What the _fuck_?”

“I remember where things are,” Gansey offered, moving to keep things from being too awkward. “Over here, right, Ronan?”

Ronan looked over to the cabinet he was pointing to and nodded dumbly. Not to be outdone by any of them, he stalked over to help Gansey take down plates and bowls, walking them over to the table with him and retrieving flatware from the drawer that squeaked. Blue and Adam looked at each other helplessly and went to sit down, watching the four of them move about in the kind of synchrony that came of practice being around in this space with one another. Ronan’s temper still prickled, but even he couldn’t escape the comforting feel of it. 

“What the hell are you doing?” he asked in a near-whisper, deliberately reaching over whatever Declan was doing on the stove. It looked like some kind of gravy and smelled amazing.

“Family came to town. I didn’t think _you’d_ want to cook after going to a funeral.” Declan said it like it was the most natural thing in the world, as if family always came to town and this was always how he welcomed them. There was too much feeling bunching up under Ronan’s skull, thick in his lungs, He thought no one would really _mind_ if he smashed a plate over his brother’s head. 

Dinner was less awkward than Ronan expected, though very different from what he was used to. Mixing his family and friends was only something he’d ever done with Gansey, an invisible line drawn. After his father died, there was a clear divide between “his brothers” and “his friends.” There was either dinner at Nino’s or dinner with Declan and Matthew. It occurred to him that Gansey was the only place where those lines blurred before, now his kitchen was full of everything and everyone he loved, and he didn’t know how to handle it. Especially since Gansey was not wedged in his usual spot between Ronan and Matthew; no, Ronan had a clear view of Gansey across from him, sitting next to Adam so closely that Ronan would bet his car their knees were touching. The way they took up each other’s space and breathed the same air was so open and raw, Ronan wanted to kick the table, and all of its food, on its side. 

He was still thinking about that kiss. Which took some of the heat off of Declan, but kept Ronan glowering viciously from under his lashes at Gansey. The spot on his jaw still tingled, as if the presence of Gansey’s mouth was there for everyone to see, and he didn’t like feeling that exposed. He also didn’t like thinking of Gansey as the type of guy who would kiss him when Adam was so very _with him_ . Not that Ronan could help himself from thinking about what that would be like — Gansey had been the center of his universe for enough of his life to be the subject of many thoughts Ronan repented for at church every Sunday. What made it worse was that Adam was no different in Ronan’s mind. Their magician, the loner with beautiful hands, the scholarship case with the wit of a knife between the ribs. Fuck. Ronan didn’t know if being on the receiving end of that kiss made him as complicit as Gansey for giving it. He certainly hadn’t expected it, nor had he asked anyone but God for it. _Please_ , but also, _no thank you_.

All Ronan knew how to do right now was be angry. Not only could he not find a direction for it to go, but he’d been asked not to unleash it in the first place. _For Adam_ , he heard on loop in his head. _For Adam_ , he said like a prayer, watching him slowly ease into this feel of family across the table. _For Adam_ , he would try to think of what Gansey had done as anything but a kiss. 

For Adam.

/

“What happened to Lynch?”

Gansey looked over his shoulder as he pulled an old t-shirt from his duffel bag. “You might have to be a bit more specific. There’s a broad range of answers to a question like that.” He softened the words with a smile, straightening to pull the shirt over his head. 

Adam shrugged, acknowledging that much was true. “He looked like the embodiment of bodily harm all through dinner.”

“You know how he is about Declan sometimes. It was a rather unexpected visit.”

Adam noticed Gansey wasn’t looking directly at him, and his brow furrowed. That meant he hadn’t been imagining the other part of this. “Unless someone was talking to him, he was glaring at _you_ the whole night.”

At that, Gansey’s expression turned a little sheepish. “Well, before we came in, I asked him not to fight with his brother tonight. We’ve all been through quite enough. I also may have kissed him.”

“How is that a ‘may have’ situation, Gansey?” Adam asked, running a hand through his hair. 

“In that it wasn’t as if I made out with him in the driveway. I wouldn’t dream of doing that without you. I leaned in a little too close, and it just happened. Here.” 

He reached out and touched Adam’s jaw, a soft caress right by his left ear. Just the feel of it commanded Adam’s full attention, so he could just imagine even an accidental moment setting off Ronan’s _punch things_ button. He leaned in until he was nuzzling Gansey’s palm sighing softly. Adam could easily imagine it, Gansey’s lips, a whisper, Ronan’s bewilderment planting the seed of helpless fury. He had to take a mental step back out of the emotion, and he looked at Gansey from under his lashes. 

“No turning back now, I suppose.” He let out a soft laugh, exasperated and fond. “You just couldn’t help yourself.” 

When Gansey also laughed, it was barely inches from Adam’s face, low. “I really couldn’t. Are you all right?”

Adam rifled through his emotions now, realizing it was safe to do so. He plucked at the bolts holding everything shut tight and thought once more about Gansey kissing Ronan. Helpless to Lynch’s gravity, hopeful, imploring, all in a chaste gesture over pale skin. Adam stood back from it and watched the way he envisioned it on repeat, feeling Gansey’s anxious heartbeat under his own, both of them holding their breath. Gansey held his lower lip between his teeth, Adam watched the action and felt the burn of wishing he’d been there, had seen it, wishing he could have kissed the other side, wanting his own chance. He couldn’t be jealous of Gansey, only hungry for what this all meant, what they could be. 

“Yes,” he said quietly, letting Gansey taste the words right off his breath. “I’m fine.”

Adam watched his face for a reaction, braced for a protest. Insisting that Adam was not fine, even when he said so, was an age-old fight with Gansey. Those were words he said with black eyes and split lips and no sleep. ‘Fine’ was a conversation killer, the surest indication he would not be elaborating further, but also a baited trap. Gansey wanted so badly to be Adam’s hero back then that he stepped onto the trigger and bit back when the teeth of Adam’s temper dug into him. Adam squeezed his eyes shut and pressed up against Gansey, twisting his fingers into the hem of his shirt. 

“I…will be fine. And I still…want this. All of it.”

“Thank God.” 

Gansey kissed him then, and Adam knew it wasn’t just about Ronan. When he let himself fall, Gansey was there to catch him. Adam didn’t think he would ever get used to the way Gansey held him, secure and safe and all the things he’d resigned himself to thinking he would never feel with another human being. He realized that they hadn’t kissed like this since the night they arrived at the Barns. Gansey had let Adam choose how and when he took affection, let Adam hold him the night of the wake, and didn’t press for anything he wasn’t willing to give or receive. Carefully, Gansey had offered himself, his time and his steadfast presence while they’d walked the front lines of everything Adam had chosen to face. Now that it was over, Adam grasped onto him, ready to let it happen to him. Gansey would stop the world for him and then quietly set it back into motion. 

Declan cleared his throat from the doorway. 

Gansey broke the kiss, but kept Adam securely in his arms. He smiled his pleasant, guarded smile towards the eldest Lynch and nodded once in greeting. 

“Two things,” Declan said, resting his shoulder against the frame. “One, do try to remember we’re Catholic. I’m not saying that should stop you, if you are serious about your intentions. I’m just reminding you that you’ll need to employ some measure of acceptance and reassurance for what he’s feeling. He isn’t allowing himself to acknowledge he wants it as much as you do.”

Adam felt Gansey’s fingers dig into his shoulder blades, but a cursory glance told him that smile was still in place, albeit with an added flush to his cheeks, red at the tips of his ears. Declan didn’t give him a chance to offer any explanation or justification in response. “And two, I would like a few minutes of your time, Adam.”

He blinked, nodding. “Yeah, sure.” 

Reluctantly, he moved his way out of Gansey’s grasp, noting that the smile his boyfriend had been clinging to finally cracked at the edges, suspicion in his eyes. 

“Declan…”

Adam liked that near-dangerous, proprietary tone. It was about him, and after the last couple of days, the last several years of his life, it was nice to be the reason. 

A sigh, Declan’s expression ever bland, even while he met Gansey’s gaze head on. “Don’t worry, Gansey. I’ll return him to you unscathed. I believe my brothers are making cookies with Miss Sargent. I’m sure they’d like your assistance.” He shifted his attention back to Adam, merely raising an eyebrow. 

Wordlessly, he stepped over to Declan and followed him out of the room.


	11. Fratres Aeterni

_Brothers eternal_

**A** dam liked the way a near-winter felt at night, crisp and quiet, heavy with something that didn’t quite have a name. Declan led him outside, to the front porch, where a light next to the door struggled weakly to illuminate the railings. It could barely touch the darkness beyond them, making it feel like Adam was safer within its glow. Declan said that he’d be returned unscathed.

“Please, close the door behind you.”

Declan was also a liar.

Adam did as he was asked and carefully made his way over to Declan, near one of the corner posts. Adam realized that he hadn’t ever really had the opportunity to get this close to Declan. Even while in the same place, it had been nearly impossible not to see him through a Ronan-colored lens. Bastard older brother, overbearing gatekeeper, a shadowy nuisance in Ronan’s magical reality. Neither a dreamer nor a dream. 

Now, with his face cast in varying plays of light and shadow, he came across as both younger than Adam knew him to be, and much, much older. That was an effect Adam often felt, and had only really studied in Gansey. In truth, Adam didn’t really fear for his life or safety, all implied teasing of a shovel talk aside, but now he was more curious than ever.

Declan had gravitated to a place where light and dark were a blurred line, watching Adam. 

“You’ll have to forgive the unimpressive presentation. This was only intended for you.” 

Adam’s curiosity piqued further, and he pushed his hands into his pockets.

“I don’t need to be impressed, Declan.” 

“Everyone here knows about Ronan’s dreaming, don’t they?”

“You’re asking me like you don’t know the answer,” Adam replied. 

Declan turned away from Adam and slid a pair of glasses closer to the bottle. His brow wrinkled at their dusty appearance, looking as unused as the liquor did, but he rubbed at it with his fingers until he was satisfied. The gesture of wiping his hand on his pants looked so un-Declan-like Adam felt like he’d never met him before. Still, he couldn’t tear his eyes away while Declan made almost a ritual of taking the bottle and removing the lid. He poured only a little into each glass before setting it aside, offering one of them to Adam.

“I don’t drink.”

“Humor me. I’d like to tell you a story.”

Adam took the glass, breathed in slowly through his nose, regretting it immediately. Definitely whiskey. It felt awkward in his hand, more surreal than anything he’d already seen and done this week, sharing this space seemingly outside of time with Declan Lynch. 

“Three years ago, someone killed a dreamer, Niall Lynch. Destroyed him in the most significant way possible, scattering the mind that dreamt so he couldn’t have any more dreams again. It was a message to his oldest son, a warning to hand over a precious item that could bring dreams to life. The irony of that amuses me to this day, even when it shouldn’t,. Unfortunately, for everyone, the message was intercepted by the middle son.” 

Declan studied his face, while Adam stood spellbound to the tale. In one blink, he looked no different from any other time Adam had seen him. Grey, composed, seemingly nothing but bastard indifference. But Adam’s heartbeat was wild, not because Declan felt like a threat to Adam. No. Because they were both wild, bound in blood to men who had tried to ruin them under the guise of ‘father knows best.’ 

“The only reason I mourned the loss of Niall Lynch was because it tore my family apart. I wanted to be angry at his murderer, and I was. So very angry. But when my father’s phone rang, I had to answer it. I had to answer to everything. The man who killed him helped me realize that it wasn’t his death that cut holes in us; it was everything he’d chosen to do to us while he was alive that left us open and bleeding once he was gone. I have no way of knowing if things would have gotten worse or better had he lived. But when he went up in flames, I removed everything that had already been sold to interested parties and everything that was still in the throes of a bidding war.”

Declan gestured to the bottle with his glass. “I’m pretty sure he dreamt this too. It tastes like 1962 Dalmore, his favorite whiskey, but the label doesn’t have any identifying features and no matter how much you pour, it never empties past halfway. He said it helped him dream. When I was a kid, just when I was getting a taste of the world he lived in, I snuck down to the basement and drank some, hoping that maybe I’d bring something back from my dreams like he did. I didn’t know better back then that it was the last thing I wanted to be like.” He swirled the liquid around in his glass. “Turns out dream whiskey is a lot like normal whiskey. Too much of it can knock you on your ass, and you still won’t bring things out of your dreams if you weren’t born a dreamer. The day I closed up the Barns, I raised my glass to a different life. It was cleansing. I thought perhaps you might understand.” 

Adam looked down at the liquid amber rippling in his glass. He wasn’t sure if Declan expected him to say anything to what he’d just learned about Niall Lynch. Out here, just the two of them, he did indeed understand that the iciness in his bones had nothing to do with the cold. He knew what hatred sounded like; he’d heard it in his father’s voice for years and years. Declan didn’t need reassurance that his hatred was justified, he was saying that they shared something more than just loving Ronan. 

“I guess you know about my dad.” 

“I mean no disrespect, but there was no way I couldn’t know,” Declan replied. “Who do you think signed Ronan’s paperwork at the station that night? Who do you think took him back to his car? I know about your father because Ronan was willing to go to jail for you. I can’t pretend to understand what it was like coming back here to put that man in the ground, but I thought I might have enough of an idea to offer this much.”

A laugh barked out of Adam’s throat, dry and anguished. He’d seen only a fraction of what Niall’s choices had done to Ronan, to Declan. While Ronan had chosen to believe there was something worth looking up to, Declan had seen the uglier side. Like living in a neighborhood that believed Robert Parrish worked hard to provide for his family, but then acted like they hadn’t seen Adam leave the house with bruises. He felt understood in a way he didn’t know he’d needed to be, and it was a weird dream-like sensation. As if he already knew when they left this moment behind, everything would go back to normal, and yet be irrevocably changed. 

“To being above ground,” Adam said, holding out his glass.

Declan Lynch smiled at him, as tired as Adam felt. The glass clinked softly. “To being above ground.”

The whiskey burned down Adam’s throat.

-

“There you are.”

Gansey stepped out onto the porch wearing an apron that had clearly belonged to Aurora. The corner of Declan’s mouth twitched at the sight of his bulk in such a delicate thing smattered with pink roses and lace-edged pockets. Not entirely unfitting, as Gansey tended to take being the mother hen of Ronan and his friends very seriously. Something told Declan he wore it with pride. 

“We were just finishing up our conversation,” he said, reaching to take Adam’s glass back. 

Gansey didn’t bother to hide how closely he watched, and Declan didn’t bother to hide he was fully aware of the scrutiny. Could he tell they had just toasted Robert Parrish’s untimely demise with a shot of whiskey? If he did, he remained unobtrusive about it. Declan felt proud of Gansey in that way only a surrogate brother could; his way of looking after those he loved was protective curiosity rather than outright badgering. It made him more sure of his approval in spite of all the ways it could get messy.

“The first batch of cookies is out,” Gansey said, as if that were the reason he’d sought them out. “Amazingly, most of the dough made it into the oven and not straight into Matthew’s mouth.”

“I applaud your efforts,” Declan said, opening the screen door. He looked at Adam over his shoulder, nodding respectfully to him before disappearing inside. 

Gansey’s voice was a concerned murmur fading behind him. The inviting smell of fresh chocolate chip cookies greeted him, getting stronger the closer he got to the kitchen. Blue and Matthew hovered near the oven, watching over the latest pan so they didn’t burn. Declan recalled that the little timer had been one of Ronan’s early dream things. Instead of a ding, it announced its completion with a crowing rooster. The seconds counted down at half the speed of normal seconds, rendering it inconvenient for actually keeping time, and yet those two had insisted on using it anyway. The familiar lethargic ticking took him back to a time when Ronan thought baking _took forever_ . Most would say simpler times. Declan had yet to wrap his mind around the concept of simple, so it was just _then_ compared to _now_. 

“Figures you’d show up when the work is already done,” Ronan grumbled from the sink, putting the batter-smeared bowls to soak. 

Declan settled himself beside his brother, reaching to turn the faucet over to his side of the sink so he could wash the whiskey glasses.

“That’s my exact MO, Ronan. What a surprise.”

Ronan rolled his eyes, then jabbed him sharply with his elbow. Declan didn’t even wince. The gesture was as welcome as a hug from Matthew would have been. 

“I have something for you.”

“Oh yeah?” Ronan turned his head, scarred brow raised in impatient question. 

Declan put the glasses aside and slipped a hand into his pocket. He procured a keyring with a tarnished Aglionby keychain. The raven shape was unmistakable, trapped between a collection of old keys with sharp teeth. Some of the keys looked identical, like they belonged to the locks of big, heavy chamber doors, the others smaller and varied like the ones for filing cabinets and utility panels. Declan watched as Ronan’s eyes widened and he snatched the ring right from his hand. 

“You crazy fucking bastard, you actually got them. Fuck.”

“Christmas came early. You’re welcome.”

Ronan’s expression was complicated - angry and relieved and eager, all at once. Declan wasn’t expecting a thank you, so his feelings really weren’t hurt when he didn’t get one. If anything, Ronan looked conflicted, glancing toward the main room leading out to the porch. Where Gansey and Adam were. On second thought, conflicted was an understatement. Ronan also didn’t ask him how he did it, which was good because Declan had no intention of telling him the truth about it. Ronan closed his hands around the keys hard enough Declan was sure they’d leave marks in his palm. He dried off his hands, leaning in.

“Your move, Ronan. Don’t throw it away.”

The rooster crowed.


	12. Lux Aeterna

_ Eternal light _

**B** lue marveled at Gansey’s restraint. It wasn’t a virtue often attributed to him, particularly in the realm of mysterious things. And this midday adventure in Ronan’s car, with Gansey blindfolded in the back, was most certainly a mystery. He’d fed them all breakfast, trying and failing not to rush them into finishing because he had a plan for the day.  _ You too, maggot _ , he’d said warmly to her,  _ but you have to keep your fuckin’ mouth shut _ . Blue had given her word, and then spent the time cleaning up and getting dressed wondering what he could possibly have to show them. Maybe he’d been dreaming up a new forest or another kid brother. Since Gansey was the only one blindfolded, those options were still possible, but highly unlikely. She didn’t ask any followup questions because she was pretty sure she wouldn’t get the answers. Honestly, considering all the tension tangled up around Ronan, Adam and Gansey, she was surprised to even be included along. It made her happy, maybe even like he’d forgiven her and Henry for dragging Gansey away from Henrietta for a whole year. 

Blue worried about being left behind by the people she loved, too.

“Are we going far?” Gansey had asked, folding his hands in his lap once they’d tucked him into the passenger seat. 

“You’ll find out when we get there,” was all Ronan would tell him. 

So, they left Singer’s Falls, the air crisp and the sun bright. Blue thought the day tasted like promise. She leaned on the armrest in the backseat, peering out at their surroundings so she could get a hint. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted Gansey’s hand wiggling back between the seat and the door. Next to her, Adam leaned forward and hooked his fingers with Gansey’s, just as curious to see where they were going. Ronan drove, stone-faced, which meant he was fighting hard not to give anything away. 

Whatever their destination was, it was in Henrietta, the route as familiar to Blue as breathing at this point. There was only one main road from Singer’s Falls, dumping onto the path into their hometown, single story shops popping up to greet them. Blue missed it more than she expected. She’d been so focused on getting to Adam and the rest of her Raven boys to really acknowledge it. It still called to her, still welcomed her; she felt her pulse quicken. 

Ronan took another familiar turn and Adam straightened up immediately. Blue felt like they were both holding their breath now. 

“Adam…?” Gansey asked, and Blue didn’t even have to ask how he’d known something had changed. Either he felt it too, or he felt the shift in Adam, maybe both. 

“Everything’s fine, Gansey,” Adam assured him. Blue picked up a cadence to his voice.  _ More than fine, great, actually. Just wait.  _

That’s what she wanted to tell him too, without giving away what she thought was about to happen. 

They came to a stop next to Henry’s car, idling in patches of gravel and overgrown grass. Ronan looked back at them with his finger pressed to his lips, eyes wordlessly telling them unpleasant things would happen if they slipped up. Blue practically tripped to get out of the car as Adam made a slightly more graceful exit. 

Gansey pouted. “Can I take this thing off now?”

“Take it off, and I’ll break your hands,” Ronan said cheerfully.

Blue grinned in spite of herself, “That’s a terrible thing to do to Adam.” That startled a laugh out of Adam, and she turned her wicked smile his way, too. “Just lookin’ out for you.”

Adam shook his head, helping Gansey out of the car just as Henry climbed out of his, giving a jovial wave. He then made the zipping motion of his fingers over his mouth, and Blue gave him a thumbs up. Ronan caught her in a headlock, and finally they all stood together.

“All right, Gans’,” Ronan told him. “Now you can take it off.”

“Finally, good god. I was about to—”

Gansey choked off mid-sentence, before he’d even gotten the blindfold off his head. His eyes widened, drinking in the tired, looming bulk of Monmouth Manufacturing before him. The palpable weight of his realization felt magical and alive under Blue’s skin. She reached up to rub her arms, and it had nothing to do with the chill of November. Her face hurt with the force of her smile. Gansey took a step forward, shakily, and Blue wondered if anyone had considered the possibility of him fainting. It was an appropriately Gansey reaction to something so important to him as his old home in Henrietta. But even though he staggered forward still, he stayed on his feet, the blindfold dropped from his hands helplessly. 

“This is a dream,” he murmured.

“Listen, Dick, I consider myself the expert in that arena, and this ain’t it,” Ronan told him tersely. 

When Blue looked up at him, his expression was unsure. Despite how they all knew Gansey felt about this place, Ronan still feared rejection. Blue hoped her nudge to his side was reassuring. He squeezed her back, then broke free, digging into his pocket for a ring of keys. He stepped up beside Gansey and took his hand, shoving them forcefully into it. Gansey finally looked away from the building, down at their hands cupped around the keys, then up to Ronan’s face. Ronan said something to him Blue couldn’t hear while pointedly not meeting his eyes, and the words had Gansey throwing his arms around his neck in a disastrous hug that almost sent both of them sprawling.

Ronan shot a helpless look to Adam, but held onto Gansey just as fiercely. 

Blue liked how Adam smiled at them. 

/

Gansey didn’t know what to expect when they went up to the second floor. Expectations flew out the window when one came back to a place he never thought he’d be again. That they were standing in Monmouth again, well, that would have been enough, he was sure of that. But when they got up to the apartment, the door swung open to reveal a snapshot of everything Gansey was before he’d graduated from Aglionby. From there, he’d made himself a promise to walk away from Monmouth without a fight, leave the quest for Glendower behind him. There had been no reason for it to consume his life as it once had. Gansey distinctly remembered thinking that he just wasn’t strong enough to take everything down and carry it with him, so he’d handed it over, along with the keys, on his last day of school.

The apartment smelled like books and dusty mint. All of his maps still hung on the walls, the rebuild of his miniature Henrietta had stood steadfast, awaiting whatever fate may befall it. Books stood in their haphazard towers everywhere, and his bed sat naked in the center of the room, bathed in the afternoon sunlight. Quite suddenly, the lives he’d lived both before and after Henrietta crowded together between his ribs, blooming up into his lungs. He wandered the room like a ghost haunting his former life, brushing his fingers against worn edges and well-loved topography, all his frantic penmanship and the tickets still taped to Ronan’s door. They were all old lovers to him that he was certain he’d never cross paths with again, but realized he still had room in his heart for. All at once, he wanted to sit on the floor and paint a cardboard roof or pick up one of his favorite books to lose himself in. 

“Gansey.” 

He blinked, and Adam’s face came into focus. Gansey hadn’t even heard him cross the room. They stood in front of the open door to the apartment’s second “bedroom”, pristine and empty, the place Gansey always had thought someone belonged in. So many times, he’d begged it to be Adam, only to be refused by Adam’s pride and his demons. That felt like a lifetime ago, and Gansey let out a weak laugh because he could technically say it had been. 

“Hey,” Adam tried again when Gansey lost focus. This time, he reached out to touch Gansey’s face, something in his expression nearly heartbreaking. Adam’s fingers came away wet. 

Gansey understood now, what it had been for Adam to go back to the trailer and find everything in perfect condition. He hadn’t tried to linger on thoughts of what the headmaster would do with Monmouth after Gansey had gone. The transaction was complete the minute he handed over the keys. He’d avoided driving past it, something in him perhaps afraid that it would disappear completely, a useless wreck of a building belonging to an obsessive wreck of a boy. He would rather not know if his quest had been destroyed; he just assumed it would be. The difference between him and Adam was that Gansey adored his memories here, even if he’d thought he hadn’t deserved to keep them. Finding them all intact was like finding a puzzle piece, where the hole it had left behind blended into the other colors, unnoticed until the piece was found. Adam slid his hand to the back of Gansey’s neck and pressed his lips to his forehead. Behind him, Ronan fumbled to get his arms around both of them, crushing Gansey between them, and he didn’t mind. Henry and Blue didn’t waste too much time fitting themselves to the shape of the other three, limbs jostling around until it worked. No one person at the center, no one left out, tangled up now more than ever, both with their bodies and their leyline hearts. 

“Thank you,” he whispered. For Monmouth, for their friendship, for Adam’s trust, Ronan’s fierce loyalty. For Blue’s love and Henry’s happiness. Whoever Gansey was in this very moment, he knew it was because of them.

“You know,” Adam murmured, and when Gansey tried to look at him, he noticed that Adam had his eyes turned away from all of them. 

He was looking at the miniature Henrietta, his features complicated. Gansey grasped at him, afraid he might pull back. Henrietta didn’t mean the same thing to them, and it never had. He held his breath, unable to help feeling guilty in the noose of that moment. All of this had been hard for Adam, coming back to a life he’d overcome. Gansey didn’t want to be part of the bad memories, not when he’d started making some very good ones with Adam, when they had their whole lives ahead of them to really live.

“Blue said…I didn’t have to take my past into the future with me, but…” Adam licked his lips and slowly dragged his gaze around at everything. What was here may not have belonged to him, but he’d only needed to ask and Gansey would have given it all to him. “We are our past. The past is Glendower, it’s the leylines, it’s everything we lived through.” He took a deep breath, “I didn’t know how to be happy here, but at least, thanks to you and all of this, I knew what to look for.”

Ronan cussed right by Gansey’s ear. It was charming. Gansey’s smile took up most of his face, even though his eyes still stung.

“’All of this’ may very well have been the quest for Glendower, but maybe the real treasure was the friends we made along the way.”

The room went silent. Henry opened his mouth, closed it, then, “Did you just quote a meme, Richardman? I’m pretty sure that’s a meme.”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Ronan huffed. He shoved all of them away from him so hard they nearly toppled. But they were all laughing now. He crossed his arms. “Listen, I hope no one’s expecting me to make any sudden life-changing declarations. I’m still the same prick I was last year. Only now I have to claim you two fucking idiots as mine.”

Gansey and Adam looked at one another, then back at Ronan. 

Blue snagged Henry’s sleeve, trying to swallow down a crowing cackle. Instead, she said, “I should show you the first floor, Henry, because I’m pretty sure that was actually a life-changing declaration.” 

“Get the fuck out of here, Sargent.”

Now she did cackle, dragging Henry out and down the stairs while he shouted back to them, “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do, Ganseyboy!”

Ronan’s face had gone red, but he was staring at the two of them now, all challenge because he couldn’t dare to let hope in haphazardly. Gansey had seen that face many times, and now that it was directed on him and Adam, he couldn’t help the thrill that ran down his spine. He took a breath to say something, then thought the better of it, instead snagging the front of Ronan’s shirt to pull him back toward them. Ronan didn’t resist, inhaling sharply when Adam put his arm around his waist, nuzzling against his cheek. Right where Gansey had put his lips the day before, laying his brand right over it just as softly, tentative. 

“I want this,” Adam whispered. “With you. With him. Is that okay?”

Ronan’s eyes fluttered closed, dark lashes against his flushed skin. All he could do was nod. 

They kissed him, one right after the other, over and over until Ronan was breathless, latching onto them with everything he had, everything he was. They held him just as tightly and sank into the feeling of home in each other’s arms together.

**Author's Note:**

> Pretty please come talk to me about TRC and CDTH over at my blog!  
> Go check out effwit's work on their [blog](http://effwit.tumblr.com) and their [twitter](https://twitter.com/_effwit)!  
> Please also read Cristina's works - she is AMAZING [Here's her blog!](http://crostiina.tumblr.com)
> 
> Title is based on the song "Love in the Time of Socialism" by Yellow House  
>  _Perhaps we'll build a home  
>  In the shadows of the forest  
> Along the east coast, or the west coast  
> I forget where we decided  
> As long as I'm with you when we do it  
> I could trade the views in  
> For any palette  
> Nothing can take my love away_


End file.
